You Are Beautiful Inside and Out

by Dona Lyman

Many times, the quality of our lives can suffer because of the way we see ourselves. Believe it or not, most professional women do not have a very high level of self confidence. In fact, most women find themselves in a constant battle with that dreaded "inner critic" telling them "you're nothing", "you're no good", "you can't do that", "you are ugly", "you are fat" and so on.

Our culture seems to take us and divide us into parts- kind of like a chicken. This culture then takes a good, hard look at each "part" and then will proceed to tell us what is wrong. The message that is received is that you are broken, or that you need to be fixed. The truth is we are not broken. We may need to work on some things, but we are certainly not broken.

Our society then sets standards of an "ideal woman." As we go out and try to achieve this "ideal woman" status, we find ourselves comparing ourselves to someone who doesn't even really exist. The irony of this notion of an ideal woman is this ideal woman never seems to be the same from one day to the next. One day small breasts are in, and the next they are out. One day, tall is good, the next day short is better.

From every woman that I have both coached and spoke with I have found a few common truths. First, every woman feels inadequate, or not up-to-par at least some of the time. Second, every woman experiences fear at one point or another. Third, you are not alone in how you feel.

The bottom line is that your thoughts about yourself today could make or break your future. What can you do? First, stop fueling yourself with self-induced poison. By constantly feeding yourself negative scripts, your are sowing the seed of despair. Second, start encouraging and motivating yourself to succeed at being exactly who are. Celebrate every inch of you. Begin to love the gifts that you offer this world. Love those gifts, live those gifts. Begin to find the confidence to fulfill your destiny. Flaws that you think you have may actually be something will attract another person to you. Lastly, make peace with the past. Yesterday has forgotten you already, so why don't you forget it and move on with living the life you were meant to live?