Your perception is your reality. This concept is the fundamental premise behind living a happy, fulfilled life.
The way you perceive yourself, the world, and the future will always influence what comes next for you in life.
The term perception in this sense refers to ‘the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted’.
As people, we tend to give ourselves conditions we have to meet before we can feel content in our lives. We have to earn this much money, or we have to achieve certain milestones, or we have to be in the perfect relationship before we can feel satisfied with ourselves.
Here is something I find fascinating about humans. Our desires are mimetic, meaning that we make many of our choices according to the desires of others. This means that as we experience more of life with each passing second, those conditions we place on ourselves are constantly evolving with us.
This ultimately places our mindset in a constant state of lack, where we find faults in ourselves and start to beat ourselves up for never quite meeting those expectations we put on ourselves.
The trick to real, lasting self-improvement is first and foremost loving and accepting yourself unconditionally. No matter what your reality is now, the first step to a happy life is learning to be content in the present moment.
If you can align yourself with that constant feeling of unconditional gratitude for ourselves and for the world around us, then you can also feel that same gratitude for the future.
It may be a slightly counter-intuitive concept, but if you can thank yourselves now for putting yourself in a place where you are trying to achieve your goals, and can love yourself unconditionally despite what you (or others!) may initially perceive as failures along the way, you can do whatever you set your mind to doing.
Original post here.