Are you your own best advocate…or toughest critic?

Do you have trouble standing your ground? Do you tend to see both sides of every single situation? How often do you advocate for yourself or how often do you criticize yourself? Well, if you often criticize yourself then it means you probably lack self-confidence. A lot of people do not see anything good in themselves and tend to be their own toughest critic, making life difficult for themselves. So, why do we often give ourselves unnecessary conditions to ourselves? Shouldn’t we be our own best friend?

So, how you learn to advocate more for yourself? Self-promotion or advocacy doesn’t mean being over-confident. Maybe the  next time someone offers you a compliment, just smile and say ‘thank you’, instead of following it up with a ‘but …’

Amina Bello Usman, an Abuja-based Guidance Counselor, said while she’s her own toughest critic, “I’ve made many mistakes in my life and I’m always the one that can’t forgive myself. I think it’s partially because I’m terrified of what other people would think.” She added that: “Sometimes I give up so easily on myself that I ever wonder if I would be of any general good to the society. People have said to me that if I do not believe or give credit to myself, no one will do it for me. I’m living a better and positive life now, but it all had to start with me being my own best advocate.”

Sadiq Ibrahim, an educationist, also based in Abuja, says being one’s own advocate gets easier with time. “The earlier you learn to stand up for yourself, the better. You talk to yourself and try to make yourself see reason and adjust to some of the facts and realities of life. Understand that not all realities are facts and not all facts are realities. You and only you can decode these things for yourself.”

Ultimately, our husbands, fathers, best friends, mothers, sisters and children can love us and advocate for us all we want, but if we don’t love ourselves and value ourselves enough to advocate for ourselves, then we’re only hurting ourselves.