Hey all Andrew Hawkes here,

trust this will all find you safe and well. I want to share with you my thoughts on acceptance and the effects I believe it has on people.

I was watching an excerpt from a conference where I well known Success Coach was speaking of Happiness, now you might be forgiven for thinking that this well known success coach was tall with big teeth... however this was a different success coach.

He spoke of celebrities that had passed while trying to find that happiness. And how ultimately they died unhappy.

I was thinking about that, and I was thinking about my life... was it where I wanted it to be? Was I truly fulfilling my life's purpose? It caused me to question was I absolutely happy? You know Buddha said; "There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way" So what was it that caused me to look deeper?

I mean I am a happy guy, I have a loving family who want nothing but my success and happiness (what ever success means) I always endeavor to find the good in any situation. I have had many great teachers over the years, and one of the most profound lessons I have had was simply to be able to laugh at myself and not provide a negative emotion when it comes to silly little mistakes I have made. This ONE teaching has saved many great hardships. You see when you add raw emotion to an event you are applying some of the hardest setting concrete in the history of mankind! So if you are beating yourself up... well enough said I think.

What does this have to do with personal acceptance? Well hang in with me and lets see. When you look at society what is it that you see? Given the forum we are in here I will provide a couple of observations (at least this are my observations.)

As a whole people look for acceptance from people; for their achievements, their actions, their results. This is only natural and it ties in with the six basic human needs. And it really could fall into a number of them. What I have found, and again this is purely my observations (and my experience within my own life) is that we tend to look for acceptance from others as it is easier to that than it is to be responsible for ourselves. It stems from a lack of confidence in our own abilities. Now this maybe something inherent that has come from generation to generation, or it maybe due to someone being picked on in schools, or in the work place. The constant taunts about never amounting to anything, that a person is useless good for nothing. Any number of reasons. It may have been totally indirect;

e.g. A child hears their parents arguing, one parent calls the other hopeless, good for nothing, looser (what ever tag you want to put in here). They hear this often, every other week this same argument takes place. One day the child does something wrong while the parent that usually does the name calling is at their wits end, and although the parent does not hurl the same abusive language at the child, they tell the child that they are just like the other parent. (Perhaps you have witnessed or even experienced this yourself?)

What just happened here? After years and years of hearing that one parent is basically a looser, they child is now told that they are just like them... Hmm... Interesting right?

OK so back to acceptance, more importantly personal acceptance. Have you ever noticed that successful people really don't give to much weight to what other people are saying, they are not necessarily swayed by public opinion? There is a reason for this. They accept themselves for who they are. They are not trying to play a part, they are not trying to please everyone. They are who they are and have a great personal acceptance.

From this you could say that all it takes to be a success is to love yourself first. Accept yourself for who you are, don't be so hard on yourself, we are after all our own worst critics. And you know what, you are probably not wrong. I mean that the end of the day, surely if you have a great personal acceptance then you are already a winner right?

I say could say that is all it takes, as if you are striving for more then it is really the first step. However it it THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE, with out getting this step straight you are going to go no where FAST, sure you may make some money... however I can almost guarantee that you lose it all and MORE.

You want success? You want wealth and happiness? Fall in love with the person looking at you in the mirror daily, accept them, and understand that that person that looks at you has all the acceptance needed for your life's journey.

No pictures today.... just good content. Please share with your friends, tweet it, share it on facebook, more importantly though, please leave me your thoughts below.

Namaste

About the Author

Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.