“Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons.” Jessica Lange.

It’s important if we are to be the best that we can be personally and professionally that we learn to use our energy and mind in the most productive ways possible. One way we can do this is to develop greater inner peace and calm in our lives.

A key element of inner peace and calm is to be more accepting of situations and people. Rather than expending lots of energy wishing things and people were different or trying to rewrite history, we have to start working with “what is.”

Acceptance is defined in the dictionary as “The action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.”  It is also defined as “The process or fact of being received as adequate, valid or suitable and agreement with or belief in an idea or explanation.”

In having greater acceptance in our life, we can start to focus our minds, time and energy on how we want things to be. With this clarity we will move things forward from where we are now. We can decide what we can do to build upon our current position and develop it into what we desire and aspire to.

There is a great quote by Socrates which we can use as a reminder of the power of acceptance and how it helps us deal effectively with change. He said “The secret of change is to focus your energy not on fighting the old but building the new.”

How many times have you fallen into the trap, after something hasn’t gone as planned or as you envisaged, of replaying the situation in your mind and wishing it had a different outcome? This is easy to do but a pointless exercise because no matter how many times you replay it, what happened isn’t going to change. It is what it is.

Being more accepting of others allows us to be in a state of non- judgement and to have no malice towards them. As a result, we have greater tolerance of other people’s views and opinions. We accept people as they are rather than how we would like them to be. We start to look at their strengths and qualities rather than their flaws and weaknesses.

We can apply this principle to ourselves too and become more accepting of who we are. We can develop pride in our qualities, our accomplishments and achievements. We can expand our appreciation of the value we bring to the world and the contribution we make.

We can accept and use our natural gifts and talents rather than spend time and energy focusing on our weaknesses and what we lack. This also allows us to stop wasting time and energy comparing ourselves to others. Instead, we become more single minded and focused on our goals and desires.

When we encounter difficulty or challenges, we can choose to accept what is, take the lesson from it and move on with greater wisdom. After all, tomorrow is another day.

We can learn much from Reinhold Niebuhr’s quotation “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This week, why not take a few moments to reflect and ask yourself, where do I need to develop greater acceptance of situations and people personally and professionally? What would be the benefits to me if I were to do so?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk