Improving my self-concept

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but
tomorrow is ours to win or to lose."
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Click Here For Success Tip # 087

Yesterday's post I came up with the behavior may have been bad, but the child is not bad.  There are consequences for poor behavior.  My challenge is taking these different ways of treating a child on how to improve my own self-concept.  How well do I observe myself?  Do I pass judgement on my own behavior before I have time to evaluate what I am doing?  How am I at parenting myself?  Do I call myself ugly names and continue the abusive mental tape I was raised with?  What behaviors do I have that I want to change?  My daughter set a very good example for me.  She talked to me about her desire to loose weight.  She first observed all her eating habits by recording every bit of food she was eating for weeks.  Then she considered what areas of change would most benefit her and help her stick to her changed eating habits.  She is a great example of observing her own behavior.  Right now I am not accomplishing one of my major goals.  Instead of beating myself, I started observing what am I doing instead.  Is the set back temporary?  I realized that I had another important goal that took precedence for a time.  It wasn't a matter of laziness as much a matter of something else was more important.  Now that event is past, I need to re-prioritize what I am doing.  Do I even want to accomplish the goal?  I am learning a lot about myself by paying attention to what I do.  I am taking more time observing myself and less time judging.  If I don't like the consequence of my behavior, what do I need to do to get the desired results?  In learning to love myself and improve my self-concept, I feel that I need to view myself with the same compassion that I view my children.  I may make a poor choice, I have the opportunity to make a change.  If I don't like where I am, I need to observe my own behavior and see what choices I am making that reinforce where I am at.  A step towards a better self-concept is observing and then making healthy choices towards what I truly desire in my life.

In this process, one of the most difficult things I have to over come is my tendency to neglect myself attempting to please other people, solve their problems, and meet their needs.  For years, I allowed others to define me for what I did for them.  They were calling the shots.  Part of improving my self-concept is to stop neglecting what is important to me in pleasing someone else.  Part of improving my self-concept is for me to decide what is good enough.  Part of improving my self-concept is considering the consequences of my behavior and work out by observation, without harshly judging, what I need to do to change.    

Kind of an interesting thought to go with this is the video I saw tonight on Facebook from Positively Positive on the value of failing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x4WN1QVwq9k