T.I.G: Living Your Life on Your Own Terms (II)

In the first part of this work, we discussed what it means to live life on your own terms and the place of opinions and validation

The fact is that living life on your own terms is an art that should be practiced on a daily basis by individuals who know what they want out of life and have worked a way out to follow-through the process of becoming exactly that.

This process involves various steps, steps that if thoughtfully followed will ensure that you are always on course with living your life as you ought to live it, and ensure that you do not go off looking to other people’s standards to live by. It will ensure that you are online with your personal design and not offline looking for whatever everyone else wants to design you to be.

We are going to consider some of the steps below.

Learn to Believe in Yourself
Believing in yourself is the beginning of learning to live on your own terms. When a person lacks self-belief, such a person totally lacks self-confidence, and without that, it is hard to do things on your own, it is hard to make moves on your own, it is hard to be yourself. Self-belief is the bedrock of making important decisions on your own. If it is lacking, all you will end up with is what you are being told to do, which will land you right opposite where you should be, which is living your life on your own terms.

Building self-belief in this era of social media where everyone wants to be someone they are not is not easy. You have to be very strong and focused. Building your self-belief, even in the midst of the plethora of images and influences put before you, is possible and doable, and once you start believing in yourself, living your life on your own terms become easier. Learning to believe in yourself requires that you accept mistakes as mistakes, and you learn and move on from them. Don’t magnify mistakes into more than what they are: mistakes. The more you do, the more it affects your self-belief. Admit the mistakes, learn, and move on.

Accepting your victories too is part of the process of building your self-belief and it’s as important as being able to admit mistakes, you might wonder how possible it is for someone not to accept their win. Let me put you through a brief scenario.

Mr C: What’s up na Mr D? That your invention is a big deal o, you really did good work there, man. Kudos, kudos, you deserve everything.

Mr D: My brother, it was just luck o. No be say I be guru like that, I don’t even know how it happened sef.

This is a typical example of a person that lacks self-belief. Even in the midst of praises, their lack of confidence is still as evident as when they are not winning.

Believe you are worth everything and more and believe you can achieve everything you set out to and even much more. Learn to believe in yourself and your abilities, it is the foundation of living your life on your own terms.

Make Choices on Your Own
You’re in the best position to know what’s good for you, and if you truly want to live on your own terms, you will take charge and always make the final choices that affect your life. Let me state clearly that guidance is good, physical and spiritual guidance, but guidance is not the same thing as relegating yourself to be second fiddle when it comes to making decisions about your life. Most people are number two in their own life – their parents, pastors, spiritual leaders, colleagues, friends and bosses are the people in the number one spot when it comes to making decisions about their life. They practically live the life of these other people.

When you let people make your choices for you, they make decisions that are comfortable with the image they have of you and not the image you have of yourself. Their choices for you are the ones they are comfortable with and that leave them in a good light.

Your life is not a group assignment, so why can’t you do what is good on your own once instead of copying other people’s assignment?

If you truly want to live life on your own terms, you have to learn to make your decisions on your own, especially the ones that directly affect your life. That is how you learn from mistakes, claim your victories, and become more responsible for your life.

Taking Responsibility
Take pride in your success and own up to your mistakes. Being able to take responsibility is a strong trait. A lot of people don’t want responsibilities because they don’t believe in themselves enough to face them.

Taking responsibility has everything to do with all that has been said from the previous entry up until this point. Living life on your own terms requires you to be in charge of yourself and being in charge of yourself requires you to take responsibility for the things you do.

People who lack self-belief, people who live on the design of other people and not the design of their own making, are the same people who  will never take responsibility for anything because they are not living on their own terms; there is no real responsibility for them to take. If you do not take responsibility for your actions, you can never learn from them.

It is convenient for people to blame their actions on other people when they are not living on their own terms, when their life depends upon the validation of others. They also expect those people to take responsibility for everything they do. Taking responsibility for your doings puts you in a better position with yourself and in control of your destiny. Taking responsibility ensures that you make better decisions the next time because being in charge helps you learn be better.

If you follow these three steps above and develop yourself through them, living your life on your own terms will become easier for you.

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