Accept Yourself: How To Build Self-Esteem And Embrace Self-Acceptance Unconditionally

A few years ago I shot a shonky video of myself playing along to a Smiths song. I’m not being self deprecating when I say it’s shonky. It really is. It's not a lack of self-compassion, it's just an honest description.

I simply didn’t think about it too hard, just propped my phone up against a book on my desk, pressed play on Spotify, hit record on the phone video camera and strummed along to the song.

Hard To Accept

It's not my inner critic talking when I say the video is littered with mistakes. When the song starts I’m not ready and need a few seconds to get the capo on the guitar neck.

When I eventually start playing I get the chords wrong after only the first few bars. And then a few bars later I get them wrong again before interrupting myself to adjust the capo again.

The camera angle isn't great. It shows the chord shapes but my right hand is out of shot, and for this song it would have made a lot of sense to show the strumming patterns and picking arrangements.

These aren't negative thoughts or unfair self criticism. I'm just describing the video how it is.

At the end I mutter something fairly incomprehensible. It's not very clear but I'm aware that I'm actually addressing my friend Grav. And that’s because Grav is the only person who the video is meant for.

He’s an old friend who lives in London and he’s almost as limited at the guitar as I am. There are more serious ways you can practice an instrument but our plan was to meet up on a semi regular basis, drink wine and jam on guitars in a vague attempt at improving our skills. It wasn't any grand self-care plan to improve our mental and emotional well-being. It was just a fun stab at self-improvement.

Not Good For Self-Esteem

The first time we did it was good fun but very frustrating. We both wanted to play stuff but neither of us knew the same tunes. Plus the longer the night went on, the more wine was imbibed and, correspondingly, the worse our playing became.

We agreed that it would be better for us both to practise chosen tunes in advance and then we’d be more accomplished when we met up.

My chosen 45 was Morrissey and Marr’s sublime 'Well I Wonder' and even though the video I recorded was strewn with errors it had plenty for Grav to go on.

I found it difficult to share the large video file with him via email. Instead I uploaded my efforts to YouTube and in the description box basically wrote a note to him as if it was a private email. No one else was going to see it were they?

A few weeks later we met up again to duel with guitars and I have to say it wasn’t as frustrating as the previous time. It was even more frustrating. Especially because Grav hadn’t even bothered to watch the video I’d uploaded!

YouTube Affirmation

So, slowly, but perhaps inevitably, the idea about jamming was quietly shelved. We still met up pretty regularly and wine still flowed but my six string stayed firmly in its case.

That was the end of it. Weeks went by, and then months and then a couple of years until I received an email from YouTube. It was a notification telling me someone had commented on my Well I Wonder video. 

I clicked on the link half expecting a note saying “Hey dude, your video is really shonky. You suck!” but no, the comment was simply “Great job!” 

And there were more to come. Every few months I’d get a notification with another comment along the same lines.

I found this incredibly pleasing - the kindness of strangers is a wonderful thing - but I was really confused.

When I watch the video my self-criticism happens immediately. I make a list instantly of all the problems. All I can see are the unforced errors, the missed opportunities and the clumsiness of my playing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have low self-esteem and struggle with self-acceptance. Not at all. It was just that the flaws and failures were very clear to me and I expected others to notice those too.

But the comments are the exact opposite. They’re really lovely. And they're clearly seeing something else that escapes me. Instead of the viewers pointing out the mistakes, they actually focus on the things that were good about the video.

Just last week someone commented “Que hermoso” which Google tells me is Spanish for “How gorgeous”!

There's a really important learning point here.

Other people do not see you as you see yourself. They don't see the things you see when you look in the mirror. Yet so often we are hyper critical about ourselves and fail to see what’s really going on.

That can be a problem if a lack of self-acceptance or self-forgiveness has a negative impact. If that's the case then there is a real need to accept yourself more and find things that you're grateful for.

Reasons For Self-Acceptance

Here's the punchline from my Smiths cover video.

Astoundingly, that shonky 3 minutes and 44 seconds has now been viewed more than 26,000 times.

That’s twenty six thousand! Okay I’m no Mr Beast and Taylor Swift isn’t worried about her musical market share being affected but come on!  . . . Twenty six thousand instead of the intended audience of one!?

I didn't do it for the approval of others but out of those twenty six thousand views not one has left a negative comment. 

No one has taken the time to mention how poor my choice of camera angle is. No one has pointed out that I fluff the chords twice in the first sixty seconds. No one has said anything disparaging at all. 

My negative thoughts and feelings about the recording are not validated in the slightest. It's as if the whole world simply accepts my attempt for what it was, whether positive or negative, and focuses on the good bits.

Which all leads us to my Top Tip. It’s actually a two parter.

Firstly, it’s that you don’t need to get things right all the time. Learning to accept yourself and the things you do is a skill. In order to accept yourself you might need to work on learning to love the things you do. Maybe a bit more positive self-talk will help you build a better sense of self-worth and take you a bit further on your self-acceptance journey. Perhaps even help you to accept yourself unconditionally. True self-acceptance.

Good enough is very often good enough. Yes, of course, some things need to be spot on - I watched ‘Chernobyl’ - but not as many as you’d think. Most of the time things don't need to be perfect. Settling for less is often absolutely okay. Things just need to be 'good enough'.

So start before you’re ready. Stop procrastinating. Get on with it. Get it out there.

Build Self-Acceptance

If you’re a perfectionist you’d never release a video as badly made as mine. But being a perfectionist pretty much guarantees low self-acceptance, negative beliefs and makes it impossible to have a balanced life. Too many times our desire or need to get things ‘right’ stops us from moving taking action. We hold back for fear of being seen as something less than we are.

Whereas, showing your imperfections allows people to see you’re human. The fact that you make mistakes is a good thing. Don’t hide this - it makes you real, more honest, more acceptable, more authentic. Instead of focusing on perceived failures, show more compassion to yourself. It turns out that the positive qualities of the video far outweighed the mistakes I made.

Self-Acceptance and Compassion

The second point is a suggestion. Try looking at yourself through other people’s eyes.

There are other people in your life who really love you and respect you and care for you. Just the way you are, regardless of what you personally dislike about your skills, confidence, history, income, weight, title, mistakes etc etc etc.

They don't see you as a bad person. They can't hear your negative self-talk. They don't consider you for the success or failure you consider to define you. They don't have the feelings of shame or think about things you're worried about. They see the whole self and look at you without judgement.

Try this mini NLP exercise out. It's great for building your self-acceptance.

Stand in front of a mirror and really imagine, what other people see, what they think and what they feel when they look at you.

Not what you see, think and feel but what the people who care about you see, think and feel. It's the equivalent of surrounding yourself with people who accept every part of you. There's no need to compare yourself to others or to try to convince others that you failed at something. This process doesn't care about your past mistakes and helps you realise that cultivating self-acceptance is always possible.

It can help you identify important positives about your true self and help you to learn how to accept yourself. It can give you a whole new perspective and maybe even lead to unconditional self-acceptance.