Self-empowerment is the process which leads people to exert greater control over their lives. I have personally done so by starting a personal blog.

Self-empowerment includes cultivating skills that would ultimately allow you to influence certain outcomes and produce tangible results. This is different from merely feeling self-empowered. People may feel self-empowered by listening to a moving speech, but as new research correctly shows, people wont in fact be empowered unless theyre able to measurably change an area of their lives.

Today I will share with you three key steps that I have used to help me experience self-empowerment.

The idea that self-empowerment requires awareness sounds like a cliche. But Id like to offer a different view on the idea of expanding awareness.

I find its best to think of self-empowerment as the ability to be conscious of ones choices so that you can choose who you want to become.

I opted for this definition because I noticed that when people are dis-empowered, they lose sight of what they are capable of. So the first step to becoming self-empowered is to fully apprehend that you do have options. Sometimes these options not immediately within reach, but theyre there. So if youre unemployed and think you have absolutely no choice, then think about this:

The purpose of these questions is not to make you feel bad about yourself, but to show you that you do have a choice, and its up to you to do something about it.

You might not be the only culprit in your dis-empowerment. There might be other people in your life who keep bringing you down. These could friends, family and even partners. And if you keep letting them have a say over you, then youre never going to take responsibility for your life. Its safe to let others direct your life since youll always have someone to blame if things go wrong. Stop giving away your power and let go of immature thought patterns. Continuing on this route will only fuel feelings of inferiority, and youll believe that youre less than others.

When you feel inferior, youre going to believe them when they tell you to accept things the way they are, and to just adapt. Theyre going to tell theres no way out and that youre stuck, and if you dont take responsibility, then you wont make it.

Now, I am here to tell you that youve been told to believe a big fat lie. No, you dont have to live according to other peoples standards.

There are things you can do today to let go and begin a process of positive change.

You first have to understand for yourself how youve been conditioned to react to things around you. Are you following a dis-empowering pattern or an empowering one? You need to identify those patterns before you can change them.

Heres a self-empowerment exercise that can be of value to you.

Exercise:

Next time you catch yourself feeling dis-empowered, I urge you to take a step back and observe your mind go through its typical reaction pattern. Let your mind go through the entire rehearsal and observe it as it unfolds. What feelings come to the surface when youre dis-empowered? Do you feel weak? anxious? alone? Watch your physical reaction. Do you sweat? Does your face turn red?

This how I use this exercise:

I let myself experience the dis-empowering emotions that arise in a clam (higher-order) state of mind as though the real me is separate from the mind and body that are undergoing this experience. This helps me take proactive action and not react.

You can rise above your material weaknesses and decide how you want to respond to these thoughts. The first step to becoming self-empowered is to realize that you do have options.

Courage is the second pillar of self-empowerment. It is your anchor for any real and lasting transformation in life. Courage will help you overcome your fears, try new things, to quit things that dont work, to find new relationships, and to start your first business. Courage will also make you help, love, learn, give back, forgive, start over, to stand up for yourself, to stand up for others, to say yes, and to say no. Courage, in my view, is the most fundamental value.

But you might say, I dont have enough courage yet.

Thats fine. I ask you to focus not on what you dont have, but on what you can become once you employ your abilities to their full capacity. Dont hold yourself back by thinking you need to be absolutely ready before taking action. The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said that the most admirable actions are not those that come from the person who does them naturally. Rather, they come from the person who struggles to do them but finds a way to do them anyway. Thats courage.

A paradigm shift in your thinking is a precursor to self-empowerment.

A paradigm is a belief system within which you define yourself and the world in a coherent way. The coherence of these beliefs depends on the web of principles, values, and judgements that you have formed about who you are. In any given paradigm, events are interpreted in accordance with the rules of that paradigm and as such derive their credibility from it.

In other words, you think that your beliefs about yourself and the world around you are true as long as they fit in the greater scheme of that paradigm.

We all live within paradigms. We all have beliefs about who we are and why we are the way we are. While some paradigms are empowering, others can be dis-empowering. For example, a person who lacks self-confidence might believe that social situations provoke anxiety and such situations must be avoided.

People justify their low self-confidence by appealing to the set of beliefs they have about themselves and about social situations; such as beliefs about strangers, beliefs about social rejection, and belief about awkwardness around new people. These beliefs will make your perception of your low self-confidence level true. This happens because each belief coheres with the rest of the beliefs that are members of that paradigm.

So creating a change in oneself, in my view, has to start with a paradigm shift in your thinking. The self-empowering paradigm that I want to suggest here is a growth-oriented paradigm.

Many of the personal challenges that people experience such as low self-confidence, lack of productivity, certain financial challenges; etc., arise from living in a performance-oriented paradigm. This paradigm contains rigid and fixed beliefs about oneself and the processes of doing something well.

The person that operates within that paradigm is concerned with how they look. Theyre preoccupied with how others see them. Theyre trapped in a constant evaluation of themselves and their performance. This is an unhealthy paradigm to be in because you will never leave your comfort zone for the fear of letting yourself and others down. People who are performance-oriented also tend to be judgmental and are less likely to do well in team projects. I encourage you to let go and to make mistakes. People can be so self-absorbed that they wont even remember your mistakes.

On the other hand, a growth-oriented paradigm is one in which you dont judge yourself. You take on experiences because you know that becoming good at something requires working and probably failing along the way. Dont take yourself too seriously. Youre not a robot. Focus on growth and learning as opposed to saying: I should know how to do this, or I wont try it. A growth oriented paradigm allows you to take chances, to meet new people, to learn new skills, and to grow your earnings. It allows you to live an exciting fulfilling life.

There are two key elements to a self-empowered life, and they are competency and knowledge.

Having a good sense of your skills and strengths will give you a rough estimate about which of the areas youre likely to do well and which of these areas will challenge you. Understanding what youre not good at is both a humbling and exciting. Youre not expected to know everything about whatever you want to do. Trust me, people do appreciate it when you say I am not really good at this, or thats not my strength. Approach your weaknesses with a curious mind and focus on learning.

If you want to embark on a new journey, then you need to identify what you need to know in order to get there. But dont stop yourself from taking action. Every journey is a process of discovery and it is impossible to know everything you need to know ahead of going through the experience. Learn as you grow.

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The 3 Core Fundamentals of Self-Empowerment