Appreciation, according to Dictionary.com, means “gratitude, thankful recognition.”
You might find yourself able to appreciate a flower, a beautiful sunset, the magnificence of a star filled sky, a gift, a kindness from a friend but what about being able to appreciate you? Can you appreciate your gifts and talents, your uniqueness?
When you think about it appreciation just means finding yourself becoming sensitive in new ways to ideas, concepts, events and people. You might recognize one day what a parent, mentor, teacher or friend did for you and you feel appreciative of them and their efforts. By focusing on appreciation you can answer the question that all leaders (and we are all leaders in some way) need to ask: How do I grow and develop? How do I become more of who I am and who I am meant to be? All of our relationships are influenced by our understandings and how we behave and all of this stems from appreciation.
Once you are aware and accept that your growth comes from appreciation you find that there is so much to be appreciative for; new people, new cultures, new experiences, events, art, music and history. You can see the dark and the light, good times and bad times; you can appreciate what joy brings and even what sadness and suffering can bring. Everyone and everything around us wants to be appreciated, including ourselves.
Perhaps the most important of these appreciations is self appreciation. I am not talking about excessive self importance or being egotistical, but I am talking about more than just self acceptance. Self appreciation should be a part of your life for it is as essential to your growth as are air, food and water.
To have self appreciation you need to appraise yourself. To start the appraisal process, imagine that you meet you, your clone for the first time. Do you like you? Would you want to be your friend? Do you appreciate you for what you do for others or for what you bring to the world? Hopefully the answer is YES!
You should not judge yourself but rather you should appreciate your contributions! You should not measure your worth by your job, money, status, appearance or age. Why would you under appreciate YOU? You need to appreciate who you are and your contributions and you don’t have to lie about your talents, values, short-comings, career choice or anything else!
Once you accept and appreciate yourself you can now accept and appreciate people who are different than you. Regardless if people share your values and experiences or have different ones they all contribute to your life, and all contributions should be appreciated.
You can have richness in your life and an appreciation for your life once you put your focus on what works for you, what embellishes your life, what increases your energy and what makes you happy.
Appreciation is a way to bring more positive experiences into your life.
Self appreciation is the foundation of your life. Self appreciation is being able to appreciate everything that you are, all the successes and failures, the good experiences and the bad ones, the good relationships and the not so good ones, all of your talents and all of your opportunities and all of your potential.
We have music appreciation courses and art appreciation courses; we need a SELF APPRECIATION course!
Start by listing three things that you appreciate about yourself.
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Now share those three things with your family and friends and post your comments on the blog for all to see and celebrate!
You are a pretty special person aren’t you!
I appreciate you: do you?
