In today’s blog post I want to help you realize the importance of becoming self-reliant, resilient and sufficient.
Why do you need to be self-reliant?
Let’s be honest, no matter your background or what walk of life you come from, you can never know what challenges and tribulations life may throw at you. What’s important is to be able to adapt and get yourself through and out of a situation without having to need others. While of course, it’s great to have help their in the form of friends, family, a partner or significant other; it is also empowering to know without them you would still be able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and be okay.
If you yourself are in a difficult situation now, ask yourself…’if I didn’t have my partner, parents, friends or family, would I be able to sort this out myself?’
If you answered, ‘heck yes!’ why on earth are you reading this…good for you! Get out of here!
If you answered, ‘no’ or ‘probably not’, keep reading and I’m glad you found your way here.
‘Self-Reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one’s own person is its ultimate reward.’
Patricia Sampson
How to become self-reliant.
So you want to be independent, think for yourself and dare to do whatever you dream about without worrying what others will think? Sounds almost too good to be true but here’s how to start working towards being ‘that’ person.
Lets get the hardest and most challenging step out of the way. First, you must accept yourself for who you currently are. Not who you were, who you hope to be and all these characteristics that you thrive for but never quite achieve. If you accept yourself for who you are now, you can start building a solid foundation for the person you hope to become. For example, you may be an introvert, shy, keep your thoughts to yourself and steer clear of your reflection. However, you want to be confident, outspoken and not afraid to say what you think. You have to realize the person you wish you were is maybe not the person you actually are right now and that is okay! You’ll get there. But you’ll never get there if you try to convince yourself you are that person and fake it until you make it…that will not work here.
Accept you for all your faults and lets move on.
Stop trying to get someone or everyone else’s approval before you feel good about something you’ve done. Stop questioning what you wear or how you style your hair, if you like what you’ve done go with it and try not to ask what others think; care more about what you think and feel about yourself. Start setting small goals for yourself and praising or rewarding yourself for them when you achieve them, you need to become your own biggest cheerleader. People are quick to judge, gossip and be negative. Unfortunately there’s a lot of jealousy in our world and rather than uplift someone when they’re doing great things, if you’re not surrounded by encouraging people who want the best for you then you’re at risk of letting them pull you down. However, you’re not at risk if you rely on your own approval and no one else’s. Start celebrating the wins however big or small they are…you made it through the week without screaming into your pillow…treat yourself to that glass of wine or late night movie; you deserve it. You got promoted at work…order a takeaway! You have to praise yourself whenever you can because no one else is going to. Be proud of yourself.
Stop questioning yourself. If you’re trying to fix a problem, whether it’s a practical problem in your home or a mental question, try and solve it by yourself before asking someone else to come and remove the spider. You know you’re capable of such things but you let the fear stop you. This may come as a surprise to you but fear is a choice. Every time you feel scared of something you are choosing to be fearful. Don’t get this confused with danger because danger is very real, but whether you’re afraid or not of that danger is a feeling. Instead of doubting yourself out of fear that you can’t or might not be able to do something by yourself…try first. Don’t be so afraid of failure that you don’t even bother to try.
‘Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.’
Louise E. Boone
Think about your values. Seriously think about this one. Instead of scrolling through social media everyday seeing how everyone else portrays their lives, consider your own. What do you value in life? You can value kindness, integrity, honesty, loyalty, helping others. Or, do you find money and material items are important to you? Either is fine, and there’s also plenty other traits and attributes you can consider important, just be sure of what they are to you. That way, you can stop questioning yourself and be sure of how you want to live your life. If someone behaves in a manner that you don’t like because it doesn’t match up with your values, it’s okay to keep a distance or to even say something if you feel confident enough. In time, your confidence will grow because you develop stronger self-awareness of what is right and wrong to you.
Accept your failures, learn from them and evolve. Whenever something bad happens, do you often look for someone or somewhere to lay the blame? Stop doing this immediately. In future, if something bad happens accept that it may have been out of your control, accept that you could have done something differently or acted different. See how you played a part in the situation, choose to learn from it and move on. Don’t hold on to things that happen, be thankful that you had a difficult challenge to learn from for the future.
Know your goals. You need to know what your aiming for, what you’re trying to achieve. Whether you have short-term or long-term goals just know what they are and be sure and confident in them. Don’t look to others for advice, stop asking what other people think you should do and really think about it for yourself. If you do find yourself constantly questioning yourself or turning to others, it might be time to start turning off the t.v. or the music and spending some quality time with yourself to figure these important things out; especially if you truly want to be self-reliant.
Start building your mental toolkit. I’ve done a bit more of a detailed post on this on which I’ll like below for you. If you want to learn to be fully self-reliant and even resilient, you should be finding tools and coping mechanisms to help when you’re feeling less motivated or stuck. These will be a collection of different actions or steps you can take to get you out of a difficult mental situation.
You can do it
It might seem like an extremely daunting task at first, learning to fully rely on yourself. I can guarantee that you won’t regret working on yourself to get there, you’ll feel powerful, independent maybe even unstoppable. Go for it, make the changes and start feeling confident in yourself from this moment on.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and found it helpful in some way. I really enjoyed writing it and thinking of you making the decision to start relying and trusting yourself because you should; you should always be able to rely and count on yourself.
By Leander Rose 
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