It Is Time To Forgive Yourself

Life is hard. There will be ups and downs in your life. You may sometimes feel that the decisions and actions you have done are unforgivable. But those are all in the past now and you cannot change them anymore. The most important thing now is to forgive yourself by staying positive and moving on from them.

Mistakes are part of life

It is human nature to make mistakes in life. You cannot find a single person in this world who is free from mistakes. Mistakes are part of life and define who you are as a person.

It is normal for us to feel sorrow and feel regretful over our mistakes. Some mistakes cannot be reversed once they are made. For example, you lost your expensive mobile phone at a place because of your carelessness and now you have to pay loads of money to buy a new one if you want the same type of phone. It is understandable that you would feel sad and angry of yourself for making this mistake.

However, this situation can be viewed in a positive note. You can take an important lesson from this mistake and stop grieving over it as you cannot fix that mistake anymore. You are likely to be more careful in the future about your belongings and therefore would lose your things less often than before by taking a lesson from this mistake.

You may have made bigger mistakes than this example in your life but the same principle applies: those mistakes cannot be changed anymore. Therefore, you need to forgive yourself for those mistakes and move on with your life. Forgiving yourself from those mistakes does not mean you are pretending that those mistakes never happened, it means that you have learned lessons from those mistakes to help you become a better person.

Stop comparing yourself to others constantly

If you always compare yourself to others and their achievements, you will always be unsatisfied. You can see successful people everywhere nowadays. A few days ago, I read about a young entrepreneur who became really successful and rich last year after executing his product plan. I would feel unsatisfied and unhappy with my life if I compare myself with that person and question the reasons why I am not as successful or rich as that entrepreneur. I would get angry and unsatisfied at myself for not being at the same level as that person if I keep on comparing. It is important to realize that each person is unique and grew up very differently.

Your childhood and upbringing make you very different from each other. All the decisions we made for ourselves helped us shaped into the person we are today. Therefore, we need to forgive ourselves for not being like the person next door or others. If we forgive ourselves and accept that each person’s life experiences are different, then we can live happily in our minds.

Stop being so hard on yourself

Remember that you are not perfect. No one is perfect. Everybody has flaws and things they want to improve about themselves. There will be times where you just do not feel happy and would stray away from your goals and responsibilities.

I once made a goal to get grades of high distinctions for all my classes in university for one semester. When the grades came out, I failed to achieve my goal. Initially, I was angry at myself and could not forgive myself for failing to reach that goal as I had planned that goal very carefully. However, I noticed some positive things when I tried to reflect and analyze some of the reasons why I failed to reach my goal. I noticed that I was more involved in the activities of my college and went to more networking events. It was true that I failed to reach my goal in this case but on the positive note, I have gained some valuable experience and built good networks by going to those events and participating more in the activities of my college.

It is important to stop being too harsh on yourself. It is normal for people to fail in things and to become unmotivated to do things.  There will be unexpected roadblocks and challenges that you have to go through that would stray you away from reaching your goals and your targets. Remember to take positive lessons from those times and forgive yourself.

Be proud of your achievements

Sometimes, we tend to forget what we have achieved and done in the past. You would not be where you are today without your actions of the past as they have played a significant role in shaping your life. It is always important to remind yourself of your great achievements in times of your distress. There will always be questions of what ifs but remember that life is hard. Be grateful of what you have done so far to get where you are now. Reminiscing your past achievements will also give you confidence that you can overcome the current challenges you are facing now. You need to forgive yourself for getting into these hard situations and use your knowledge from your past achievements to overcome them.

I have recently graduated from university. Some would say my GPA was not the highest and they could point out many things that I could have done or achieved during my university life. However, university was difficult for me at times and I have faced many challenges during my time there. It is true that there are many things I would do differently if I could go back in time and start my university again, however I am also proud of my achievement of graduating from university and be grateful about it. I forgave myself for not getting a higher GPA and many other things I could have achieved as I know that instead of those things, I have learned some valuable lessons in my life.

“Forgive yourself.Life still hold a new chance to become a better person.”
-Lailah Gifty Akita

Featured photo credit: Ed Gregory via stokpic.com

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