How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

Being comfortable in your own skin means to be satisfied with yourself. Often, in American culture, and certainly for women, this is interpreted in terms of appearance. However, true satisfaction and self esteem reflect your ability to cope with whatever challenges life has for you.

Instructions

• 1

  Respect yourself as you are. Feel worthy of happiness and achievement. Build confidence on the foundation of self respect. External validation does not bring the same satisfaction.

• 2

  Strive to survive life's challenges, both big and small. Reinforce your confidence level with successful survival strategies. The ability to cope generates a sense of control over your life. Self-control and self-responsibility have been found to be key to self esteem by psychologists like Nathaniel Branden. He calls this self-efficacy.

• 3

  Accept yourself both in your appearance and in your actions. Face mistakes and perceived limitations. Understand that no one is perfect and perfection is an unattainable goal. Resolve to learn from mistakes and move on.

• 4

  Act in ways that are in accordance with what you believe. Respect your own perspective to be comfortable in your own skin.

• 5

  Work to remove self-doubt and build confidence internally. Begin a new challenge that expands your physical horizons, such as practicing yoga. Self-doubt fades away with new personal accomplishments.

• 6

  Enjoy who you are. Respect yourself for the accomplishment of surviving what life has brought your way thus far. Build upon that respect each day by meeting the new challenges that life presents you and those you seek out.