The start of the year, our birthday or a major event in our life is the ideal time to think about what we have achieved until now and what we want for the future.  It is the best time to think about all the things that we could do to improve ourselves and our experiences.  Most of us want to be happier, richer, slimmer, stronger, more successful, more seductive, and more capable at this or that.  But at the end, it all comes to basic needs, like the need to be happy, accepted and loved.  Different people achieve this state through different paths.  For some a new career, for others a change of partner, stopping a bad habit, doing voluntary work, having a child, the list is infinite.  Every person has her own particular way to feel happy. 

Accepting yourself the way you are is one of the most difficult tasks that we have.  As the joke goes when we are little girls we want to grow up and have big boobs, when we grow up we hate our boobs for being too big and when we finally come to accept them and love them… it is too late nature has taken its course and they need lifted!

1) Every morning try to think about all the things that your body allows you to do. For example, your body allows you to walk, to breathe, to dance, to laugh. Make up your own list. It is about waking up and being thankful because you are in full use of your limbs, because you have your eyesight and your sense of smell. Think about it, think how lucky you are, think about all the things that you take for granted but are so essential in your everyday life.

2) Make a list of 10 things that you like about yourself and have nothing to do with your physical appearance. Re-read and re-write this list quite often.

3) Remind yourself that beauty is a state of mind. If you are happy with yourself, if you think yourself pretty and sexy then other people will believe it too. Look at the French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis, she is very talented and in her own way pretty but she is by no means perfect –look at her teeth- But Johnny Depp is head over heels about her, as well as a good percentage of the French male population!

4) Be less perfectionist with your body. There are some things that you will never be able to change about your body, even plastic surgery has its limitations; so you better learn to accept yourself the way you are.

5) When you look at yourself in the mirror, look at the whole self. Remember, people look at you as a person, they don’t look only at your nose or your hips; they see the whole package. Do the same, look at yourself entirely not by little bits.

6) Surround yourself with positive people. Avoid those so called friends that are always criticizing you, break up with that abusive partner; leave that job where they are always putting you down. Instead surround your self with caring people who love you for who you are, people who support you and can share your achievements.

7) Demand respect from the people around you. Do not let your partner call you “fatty”, “jelly bean” or any other denigrating pet name. Demand respect in your workplace, just because your boss pays you doesn’t mean he can treat you badly!

8) Wear clothes that suit your body shape. Hiding under layers of oversized black t-shirts and leggings do not make you look your best. Wear clothes that enhance your shape and give you confidence.

9) Do not let yourself be manipulated by society or the media. Say no to all the canons of beauty that the media want to force onto us. I personally like the Dove campaign for real women, because they are not imposing a body shape that most women cannot attain without living on a can of diet coke and a salad a day. The Dove campaign emphasises that women come in different shapes and we are all beautiful.

10) Help other people. Instead of spending hours planning your menus or exercising to death in the gym, why not do some voluntary work. Rather than just thinking about yourself, do something for other people. You will be amazed at the amount of satisfaction and self-confidence that you can obtain from helping others.

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance”.  Oscar Wilde

“I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect”