The sense of empowerment has become a more recognised form of growth in the last few years with the rise of encouraging Instagram accounts, podcasts, high vibe music, self-help books and of course, the importance of self-care.
But what is empowerment? And how can we achieve it?
Empowerment is power given to someone to do something, and empowerment means something different to everyone. It’s more than just a feeling and is a reflection of increased personal value. When you feel empowered, you think higher of yourself, you walk and talk with confidence, truly comfortable with how you feel that day and recognise how worthy you are in this world.
Empowerment is closely linked to self-esteem, self-confidence and generally how we view ourselves. It is giving yourself the permission to succeed, and as soon you master what works for uplifting yourself, the happier you will be!
You might be thinking, ‘well that’s easier said than done’. Don’t get me wrong, it can be hard to feel empowered when life throws us challenges we need to work through but just because we have problems to solve and hurdles to overcome, doesn’t mean we WON’T. It’s not the end of your empowerment journey. Getting through the hard times in itself is an achievement and can be extremely empowering when you realise how strong you really are.
Facing challenges can go one of two ways: 1. Be an opportunity for reflection, growth and development or; 2) Derail your life by letting it affect your confidence, motivation and energy. If we choose option 2, we will find ourselves in a constant loop of disappointment with ourselves and our lives. The vicious circle starts with getting knocked down, becoming deflated, decreasing motivation, affected energy levels and a lowered opinion of ourselves and then we’re back to getting knocked down. We need to break out of this pattern and find practical ways to empower ourselves.
Imposter syndrome links to this. We can feel like an imposter in ourselves, in our work, in our friendship group or even family. We can feel like we’re not supposed to be somewhere in our lives and can’t realise we deserve to be unapologetically ourselves and are still able to achieve everything we want to. Whether that’s personal growth, professional growth or emotional growth. This is where empowerment of ourselves and others is so important. We need to make it a daily habit of reminding ourselves of our worth, of our value and our POWER.
Being empowered means we have self-awareness; we are aware of our strengths and weaknesses and we do not apologise for those weaknesses. We are all human, we will all make mistakes in our lives and go through hard times. But we cannot allow the negatives to outweigh the positives. If you have self-doubt, the best form of therapy is to remind yourself of all you’ve overcome (no matter how difficult) and your successes. Reflection is an amazing thing – it can remind you that you are stronger than you think you are! Understanding yourself better is a core aspect of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence isn’t something people have perfected by the time they’re 20, 30 or even 40. Give yourself a break, we are all learning and we can grow through empowerment of ourselves and others. Why not spread the love?
So how can I break out of this vicious circle and feel more empowered?
BY TAKING ACTION! Take back control of your life. If something goes wrong, acknowledge it, own it and move on. Don’t let it define you and try to surround yourself with positive thoughts, actions, conversations and energies.
Like I have previously mentioned, empowerment can mean different things to different people and how we do it can be very different too. Here are some examples which might work for you:
Journaling – reflecting on your mood, events and feelings can help you recognise what triggers you and can allow you to look back on the positive days you felt on top of the world,
Self – care – this is self-explanatory but you have to take care of yourself in order to feel your best. Make time to read your favourite book, go on a nice long walk, have a dance in your room to your favourite song, pamper yourself for the evening or watch your favourite movie. Whatever it is, as long as it makes you feel better and healthier in your mind, it’s a form of self-care,
Find a passion – if you feel like all you do is study or work, find a passion. This will remind you of the person you are and what is important to you. Being passionate about yourself is empowering.
My personal favourite thing to do to remind myself the woman I am is listening to High Vibe music on Spotify. It’s my favourite playlist to listen to when I’m feeling self-conscious, demotivated or generally on one of my down days. Within a few songs, my mood has lifted as I’ve listened to the empowering words.
Raise others up – helping others realise their potential can be very empowering. Turning your own experiences into positive tools to help someone else. This again reminds yourself of how far you’ve come and that you can literally do ANYTHING that you put your mind to. Helping others realise this too can feel amazing.
Lastly, positive affirmations. I’m so glad to see them more on social media as they could be classed as a form of self-care. Post them round your room, have them come up as reminders on your phone and say the affirmation out loud! Before long, you’ll believe what you’re saying. By doing this every day, you’ll start to recognise the positives attributes of yourself before the negatives.
As a reminder as you finish reading this, remember to respect and love yourself. Be unapologetically and authentically yourself because you are perfect as you are. By empowering yourself, you’ll find a lot more things go your way because your outlook on yourself and your life will be more positive. Amazing things can happen when you’re in control of your life! As Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, you do better”.
---- Ella Watts, Founder of Ladies of Law
