Why You’re Shooting Yourself in The Foot When You Say “I can’t accept that”

I was talking to someone this morning about how helpful it is to take an accepting view – of ourselves, others, things that happen and the situations in which we find ourselves.

She said, “I can’t accept the fact that my business partner let me down. If I accept it, that means what she did was OK. And that kind of betrayal is NOT OK.”

This is a common misconception. Acceptance doesn’t mean approval, or that you condone bad behaviour. What it does mean is that you’re able to:

• stop wishing that something hadn’t happened and face up to the fact that it did, allowing you to process it and move forward.
• stop making value judgements about the situation and instead focus on learning and moving on.
• stop devaluing yourself by tying your self worth with what happened.
• focus on solutions to repair the damage or get past it, rather than dwelling on the damage itself.

Most of all, acceptance is about choosing not to agitate yourself any further about something in the past that has happened, and that you can’t change. What you CAN change, by accepting it, is how you allow the situation to affect you today and in future.

Practise saying “I accept that this has happened / I have this flaw / she let me down. What is the best outcome, and what is the first step I can take to achieve that outcome?”

Then take that action – and the next one, and the next.

Let me know how you get on with practising acceptance.

‪#‎acceptance‬ ‪#‎mindset‬