The Road to Self-Empowerment

Being out of work while struggling to pay the bills can understandably take away from one's feelings of empowerment. Even when in times of steady employment and good finances, many of us still feel that we are not in complete control of our lives; powerless to make the changes we need in order to truly be happy.

A lack of power and self-esteem prevents us from following our dreams and doing what we really want in life. By empowering ourselves we can blossom into our true being, a prospect that is achievable for anyone.

The process of empowerment is not instantaneous and to begin with can be difficult; you will have to commit to making some fundamental changes in your thinking and your actions. But once you have taken this step, it won’t be long before you begin to see the internal and external parts of your life shifting for the better.

1. Commit 100%

How committed are you to empowering yourself? This journey will only be a success if you are truly 100% dedicated to to changing your life. If you give up at the first testing moment, you will simply stay on the same path that you are already on.

2. Set Goals

If you don’t know where you’re going, you will have no way of getting there. Think carefully about exactly what it is that you want and then write down your goals accordingly. How would you ideally like your life to be? What is it that you hope to achieve? You may have to occasionally fight the negative patterns of your subconscious from deterring you from your true desires. Do not allow yourself to be discouraged. Remember, you can do anything that you set your mind to.

MindTools.com has this great in-depth article on personal goal setting.

3. Let Go of Limiting Beliefs

Challenge the beliefs and fears that are holding you back. All too often people stay imprisoned in their own mind due to their self-perception.

Perhaps you believe that you are not good at a particular activity or that you are lacking something in order to be able to pursue your dreams. Usually these perceptions are untrue and once you challenge them you can find and resolve the source of the issue.

From now on, anytime you come up against a limiting belief, fear or doubt that challenges your potential for empowerment, ask yourself some questions. Are these beliefs really true? Why do you believe them? Have you tried proving them wrong?

By exploring your perceptions, you will soon realize that the only thing keeping you from doing what you want, is yourself.

4. Remain Positive

Positive thinking leads to positive action. Learning to maintain a positive attitude can mean the difference between triumphing over difficult circumstances and succumbing to them.

Keeping your thoughts positive is not an overnight process. It requires your persistence and commitment to filtering out the negative thoughts that are holding you back. Sometimes it may seem a struggle, but it won’t be long before you see the wonderful affects that positive thinking will have on your life.

For more information on positive thinking, read our article Maintaining a Positive Attitude.

5. Journal Your Journey

As you begin your journey to self-empowerment, keep a daily journal to celebrate the successes and changes that you start see in your life, no mater how small you think they are.

Journaling will also help you to discover patterns in your thinking and attitude that are holding you back from reaching your highest potential. As a result, you may notice parts of your empowerment plan that need some adjusting or some extra attention.

6. Visualize Success

Visualiation is a simple technique that you can use to create a strong mental image of a future event. Visualizing goes hand in hand with positive thinking.

The power of visualization can help you to achieve your goals and dreams. For example, imagine that you have a job interview coming up. You’re nervous and fretting that all the things that could go wrong will go wrong. This unconscious flow of negative thinking will more than likely sabotage your interview.

Now, instead of allowing these negative thoughts to transpire, you could visualize that the interview goes really well. You feel great, talk confidently and you get along well with the interviewer. Obviously, you would feel much more confident going into the interview with this image in mind.

Visualizing outcomes that you want can greatly increase your confidence and give you belief that you can and will succeed.

MindTools.com describes the visualization process in more detail, as well as providing a free step by step guide for using visualization to achieve your goals.

7. Affirmations

Affirmations are a simple but very powerful tool that you can use to develop your self-esteem. They are positive statements that describe a desired situation that, once repeated regularly, will trigger the subconscious mind into positive action.

There are different types of affirmations depending on the end result that you are looking for, but in the case of self-empowerment, you could try any of these examples:

For best result, repeat your affirmations several times a day. You can do them in any non-engaging situations, such as: while cooking, on the bus, walking or waiting in line.

SuccessConsciousness provides more in-depth information on affirmations, while MHmail lists some more affirmations that you might like to use.

8. Emotional Freedom Technique

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is an emotional, needle free version of acupuncture that is based on new discoveries regarding the connection between your body's subtle energies, your emotions, and your health. EFT has been reported successful in thousands of cases covering a huge range of emotional, health and performance issues. It often works where nothing else will. (EFT Home)

EFT works incredibly well when trying to develop your self-empowerment and you can learn the simple techniques easily and for free at the EFT website.

You can also follow these EFT self-empowerment videos on youtube.

9. Do Something Daring

Increase your vitality and boost your self-empowerment by doing something daring; something that you have not allowed yourself to do perviously. Think about what activities would help you to develop the belief within yourself.

Here is a list of activities that you may want to consider:

10. Share

Empowerment is to be shared. By empowering yourself you are able to give more to others, and by giving more to others you are able to empower yourself further.
Help a friend or a neighbor, do some volunteer work, donate to charity, or share the lessons your have learnt from your self-empowerment journey to assist others in making those same positive changes in their lives.

Time to Take Action

All of the tips contained within this article will be useless if fail to take action. While Positive thinking, E.F.T., affirmations and goal setting etc. all give you the map you need for your journey, the journey won’t begin until you put the wheels in motion. This step may be the hardest of all,but once taken you will soon begin to see your life changing for the better.