Self-Acceptance Doesn't Suck

Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brandon Burchard. You're always hearing about this concept in personal development and spiritual development of acceptance. You know, the need that we must accept our lives, we must accept the difficulties of our life, we must accept and honor the struggles that we face. And we must accept a lot of things that we don't even like or approve of. But how the hell do you do that? You know, have you ever heard someone says, well, it's time for you to accept something and you get upset at them because you don't like the thing that you're struggling with? Then how do you tell somebody to accept them? Accept something from their past when it was difficult, somebody was mean to them, abused them, treated them bad, a bad incident happened, you lost somebody that you loved. I mean, it can be pretty flippant when someone says, well, just practice some self acceptance, dude. Except you and I both know that they are usually right. You know, is there something that, you know, you had to deal with in your past but you haven't dealt with it? Is there something going on right now that's troubling you and it's causing so much stress and overwhelm, but it doesn't go away. It's always going to be there. Well, then this might be a good time to think about this power of self acceptance and this extraordinary ability we have in our mind to and in our heart to deal with things that life has dealt to us. And so let's talk about that a little bit because I know it's hard to hear this, but I also think this might be your next breakthrough. When I work with a lot of executives or a lot of high flying people who are just extraordinarily capable and confident, but they're always stressed, they're always upset. Acceptance is one of their ways out. When people, you know, are trying to become more mindful and, and thoughtful and present in the world, try that without more self acceptance, you just sit there and get upset, right? So there's a couple of tools, couple of simple things to think about. Number one is just defining self acceptance for you as a power. It's time to develop that. It's a weaponry in life when you can accept things, you're stronger than others. Like if somebody's sitting there and they're screaming at you and being mean and being rude, when you take it personally and you're not accepting the reality of the situation and all you want to do is fight and fight and argue and argue. That's where people get in relationships, where they're fighting over and over and over and over again because they can't accept that maybe that person, that's their reality. Sometimes you have to accept other people's position in life without trying to change them as much as you have to accept yourself without trying to change yourself, as much as you have to accept the past without have to try to change the past. So let's talk maybe a little about how you could do that. What's the process for that? The first thing is defining self acceptance for you, not as approval, right? Of course you don't approve the person screaming at you. Of course you don't approve the bad situation that happened in the past or the bad medical report. Of course you don't accept the fact that sometimes life isn't what you want. So stop thinking it's about approval. Acceptance isn't about approval. Acceptance is about peace. It's learning to be at peace with what is, even if you don't like it and especially if you can't change it. I'll give you an example. Some of you all know I lost my father in 2009 to acute myeloid leukemia. When he got that diagnosis, it really tore through our family because, you know, my dad and we were just all so close and we loved him so much. And it was a, you know, a diagnosis that he was going to pass away very soon from his diagnosis to his death was only 59 some days. And so it was hard to accept that that was what was going to happen, that we were going to lose someone we loved because especially he hadn't been sick all of a sudden, he just got sick. And they found, well, leukemia is taking your body out of nowhere. And then he was gone. And we had to accept that that was part of the process. It doesn't mean that he didn't fight and we didn't try to find everything we could do for him, you know, in that amount of time. He did. He fought the good fight. He went through three different treatments of chemo. He tried everything, tried everything. And he had been a 21 year Marine. He'd been through it all. He'd been through Vietnam in three different tours, he'd been shot up. He was a strong guy and he fought, but he also was almost like that peaceful warrior, you know what I mean? He was at peace either way, he was going to do his best, but he was going to accept the outcome that God or the universe placed in his path at that time of his life. And it gave me strength trying to be the son to cope with the situation, trying to be there, to see someone going through struggle and as much as they're struggling and fighting it, honoring it, to see them accept the path, right? To accept your hardships, to go, okay, this is the path that I have right now. God, universe, whatever it put it in front of me, I'm going to do my darndest. I'm going to be here, I'm going to be present, I'm going to engage it, I'm not going to run, I'm not going to avoid it. But I'm also not going to hate it. I'm not going to add negative fuel to a negative situation. Instead, I'm going to peacefully and persistently give my best to deal with this at my best right now. I'm not going to hate the process, be mad at the process. I accept that this is the challenge the universe has given me right now. Let me see what I can do. And that's a much more positive mindset than avoiding it. Because, you know, avoidance is a great short term strategy to avoid pain and discomfort. But avoidance is also a long term strategy to guarantee suffering, right? To avoid dealing with what we have to in life. That's the opposite of acceptance. You know, it's about engage with it, do your best, don't hate the process. That's acceptance too, right? I think another way to look at acceptance is through the lens of trust. Trust that you are capable, trust that things will get better. Trust that this too shall pass. Trust that whatever is here not only has been put here, but it is something that you can deal with. If you survive it, then there was a reason. You learned something, you develop something, you will get better over time. Even if right now it sucks, even if it's been painful, even if you're sad about it. Many of you know I also had a brain injury in 2011 that was incredibly difficult. It left a two year, just swath of pain in my life. You know, it was very difficult time when I was trying to overcome a brain injury, trying to get back in the game, trying to build my business and my career, trying to write books, do all these things you see me do. It was bad timing too. It was just all around bad. But all I could do is go, okay, I will repair myself. It might take long, but I'll repair myself. I trust that if I focus, if I stay persistent, if I keep trying, I know that it will get better over a period of time. Even if it didn't change physically, I was going to free my mind from by accepting that this was where I was at, still working, but accepting. I hope that helps. And sometimes maybe the easiest way to think about self acceptance is to think, what would you tell your friend? You know, if you find yourself fighting something in your life? If you had a friend who was going through that exact same situation, what would you tell him? You'd probably say, hey, do your best. Hey, trust. Hey, have faith. Hey, believe what you say. Something like that if they kept fighting against it over and over and over, you'd want them to have some peace about it and you try to comfort them. So what about giving yourself some peace? What about comforting yourself? What about accepting the fact that you know you've probably been doing your best? What about accepting the fact that when you screwed up, you hurt somebody's feeling? You know, you're in a better place now. You're older, more mature, more capable now. So maybe another way to think about acceptance isn't just trust, but also forgiveness. Maybe it's time to forgive that time you did that dumb thing. Maybe it's time to forgive that time you just hated yourself for doing something. Maybe it's time to let go. I think of self acceptance in those ways. I think of self acceptance in understanding that I can engage the process without hating it. In understanding that I'm going to trust this is here for a reason to pull the best of me. And I also really think of acceptance as ultimately forgiveness of the things that I did or others did so that now in this moment, I can be free. Because that is the benefit of acceptance. Whether you accept another person you've been arguing with or upset with and you finally accept that's the way they are or that's how it's going to be. It's freeing because now you don't have to carry along the anger and the upset. You're just like, well, that's the way it is. That's the way they are. Not bitter, not upset, just in a peaceful level to understand, to have empathy, to give compassion and go, oh, okay, this is all right. I trust that this is all going just like it's supposed to do. I'll keep doing my best, but here we go. I think if you can have those lenses on self acceptance, it becomes power. And that power gives you freedom to gives you that peace in the moment and gives you the better choices for tomorrow. And when you have the better choices for tomorrow, you start to experience what we call the charged life. Hey, my friend, it's Brendan. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Do me two favors. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that you continue to get updates every time I release new training for you. And number two, if you would like to get ahead a little faster in life, what I'd like to do is give you my 10 steps to achieving anything 10 times faster. So if you have a big goal, a big dream, a big mission in life, and you just like to achieve it faster, what would you need to do? You know, this is exactly what I keep next to my computer or next to my bed. And every time I have a big dream, a big goal, I open it up and I kind of use this as my checklist to get ahead faster. Because you and I both know if you're going to be more effective or more productive or you are going to achieve your goals and your dreams faster, you're going to have to switch your perspective a little bit on achievement itself. You have to adopt new thinking patterns and habits. You're going to have to have new daily rituals and habits. And your entire approach to learning and skill development must be better. So in order to help you do that, go to brendan.com 10x that's Brendan B R E N D o-n.com 10x and you can download this guide for free. Just tell me your name and email. I'm happy to email that to you for free. The same guide I use to achieve any goal or dream faster. Thanks for tuning in. Until I see you next time, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and make your difference today.