Personal Empowerment: Our Best Defense Against Adversity

Have you heard about personal empowerment and how it can help us in times of difficulty?

Have you ever felt “little” and believed that you couldn’t do anything about the adversities that life was creating at that moment? You start to think you’re useless and useless. You believe that things are going to go wrong and that you can’t do anything to change it.

What does this imply? That you make no effort to get out of this situation: you think it won’t work. So you get into a vicious circle which is difficult to get out of and which causes your discomfort to grow… Is there anything we can do? Yes! To change that mindset, read on and discover the benefits of personal empowerment!

What is personal empowerment?

When we enter the spiral of learned helplessness, our personal situation gets worse and worse. Feeling that we don’t have the power to change things undermines our physical and mental health. Of course, it can be very difficult to face the adversities of life. Difficult yes, but not impossible.

If someone told us that our existence would be a bed of roses because we were full of good intentions, they lied to us. Nor is the thought of the little devil who told us that everything is terrible. In this sense, happiness is usually the product of balance ; a balance we rarely find if we don’t strive to work with the forces that exist within and without. It’s a question of will… but also of skill and intelligence.

What I mean by this? That things, by themselves, usually don’t change. It is very important that we see ourselves as valid beings to reorient the forces we talked about earlier and reach a position of balance. Of course, without forgetting that there are many things that escape our will. This is important because if we try to control everything, we will get frustrated.

In short, empowerment is about making people capable of taking decisions and facing the different situations that arise. In this process, it is essential that the person sees that the discomfort is not simply imposed by external facts, but is an internal process that can be controlled and managed.

How can we promote personal empowerment?

To get a person to see themselves like that, it is essential that they have adequate self-esteem. Empowering a positive view of yourself will make us more confident in our abilities and power to change what we would like. Now, that self-esteem needs to adjust to reality.

We will undermine ourselves if we create high expectations that we cannot meet. Then we will be frustrated. Therefore, it is extremely important that we know each other well and are aware of our strengths and weaknesses. In order to be able to put ourselves in this position and with this willingness, it is important to put ourselves to the test.

If we don’t take risks, we will hardly move forward. Confronting reality will help us to see that our problems are rarely as horrible as we once believed and that we have the skills to deal with adversity. On the other hand, if we fail in our attempt, we can see what we’ve done wrong and make changes to get a better result.

What are the characteristics of an empowered person?

Finally, we’ll see what characteristics we can observe in an empowered person:

• Get informed and try to know the subjects that interest you.
• Seeks to graduate and acquire new skills.
• Is responsable.
• You know and accept yourself.
• You have adequate self-esteem and self-confidence.
• You are aware of the importance of taking care of yourself.
• He knows how his social relationships are and takes care of the ones that are worthwhile, but without self-sabotaging, looking for balanced relationships and without a toxic emotional dependency.

• You are aware of the importance of setting boundaries in your interpersonal relationships.
• Can plan your time, setting goals, needs and priorities.
• Knows how to make decisions.
• Try to resolve conflicts as best as possible for all parties.
• Communicates using your social skills and assertiveness, in a way that takes into account the rights of others and your own.

In short, through empowerment, we are better able to live in harmony with ourselves and with others, so that our social relationships improve in quality and our psychological state improves… Work to continue evolving as a person!

Images courtesy of Michael Rosner Hyman, Austin Schmid and Jerry Kiesewetter.