“When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” ~ Stacy Charter

Anyone with children growing up in the mid to late 90’s is probably familiar with the saying “To infinity and beyond!” Buzz Lightyear made that phrase famous throughout the movies Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Although mathematicians have pointed out that it is not possible to go beyond infinity in mathematics (or even to reach it), there are no limits to what you can accomplish if you allow yourself to imagine and believe.

To complete the thought in Stacey Charter’s quote in the subhead above:

“There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me…or leave me. Accept me – or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should be and don’t try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision. When you are strong enough to love yourself 100% good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.”

The art of loving yourself begins with self-acceptance. They are essentially the same. You begin loving yourself when you stop rejecting yourself. When you practice self-acceptance of your feelings as they are now, you will experience real changes in consciousness. Once you love and accept yourself, a world of potential will open up. Here are 7 steps to finding your potential:

1. Reflect on your life: Spend 20-30 minutes daily quietly reflecting. Open up your mind and just think, analyze, consider, ponder, contemplate, imagine, visualize and dream. Capture these thoughts by writing them down so you can re-read later. As Albert Einstein said – “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
2. Become an optimist: If you’ve been stuck on stinkin’ thinkin’, you’ve only created an anchor in your life that’s keeping you down. Always look for the positive in every situation.
3. Set a goal: Set a lofty goal that stretches you outside of your comfort zone. As Napoleon Hill said – “A goal is a dream with a deadline”
4. Define who your role models are: Once you’ve identified them, model yourself after them. If you don’t, you’ll pick up bad habits from all the wrong people.
5. Be grateful: Having an attitude of gratitude invites even better things to come into your life.
6. Become a life-long learner: Let your mind be the sponge it was created to be – commit to learn something new every day.
7. Embrace change: It’s impossible to reach your full potential if you’re not willing to change. Come to the realization that change is good!

Just think – if Buzz Lightyear, the toy, hadn’t imagined he was the real Buzz Lightyear, he would have just sat there on the shelf, in his hard plastic glory with his LED laser light. What are you doing with your talents and abilities? We all realize the importance of physical fitness, but equally important is liking and loving the person you were created to be. By loving, accepting and believing in yourself, your dreams and your imagination, like Buzz’s, could potentially take you “to infinity and beyond!”

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