Self Acceptance and Self Improvement

Self acceptance is a virtue. You accept your strengths and weaknesses. You are happy as what you are. The weaknesses do not affect your self-worth or your self-esteem, you are confident of yourself

Self improvement means you get better in your life. You are more productive in the office. You are able to write more appealing articles. You exercise more frequently. You are getting better and better in every way with each passing day.

Does it mean that when you accept yourself you don’t have to improve yourself?

You are a smoker and you enjoy your daily puff. You admit that the habit is not good for health but you find the craving for a few sticks a day is something that you cannot give up.

You enjoy your favorite snack and a few cans of beer in front of the tube daily. You realize that physical activities are important for your obesity, but you accept that your current lifestyle is your weakness.

Self acceptance in the above cases does not mean you can ignore self improvement. If you do, you don’t really care too much about yourself. You allow your health to deteriorate. When you don’t care about yourself, nobody will.

The right attitude is that you may be obese, but you make an effort to exercise and take care of your diet and you make an effort to change to a healthy lifestyle. Likewise, you are conscious of your smoking habit and you are determined to reduce the number of sticks per day until you get rid of the habit completely.

Self acceptance and self improvement means you love yourself as what you are and at the same time you do your best to improve yourself for the better.