Learning how to empower yourself is a powerful thing. As a woman, I know women face lots of pressure in this world. We are pressured to be perfect wives, super moms, successful business women, and to look perfect. We are expected to do it all and do it flawlessly which can be very overwhelming – and can lead to feeling defeated.
That is why knowing how to feel empowered is so urgently needed in the female community. We need to stop caring about what the world expects of us, and learn to love ourselves and feel empowered no matter how we look, how successful we are, or how clean our home is.
If you empower yourself, you will start building inner strength and confidence to help you thrive in life.
It’s okay to not be perfect! And as a mom, wife, and entrepreneur, I know that it’s not the easiest thing to master self-empowerment which is why I’ve invited Miriam Barnes to write on ways you can empower yourself every day! She has some great information to share with you and some tips for self-empowerment. Let’s read what Miriam has to say…
6 Little Ways to Empower Yourself More Every Day
Female empowerment is a hot button topic. But just because the world is finally waking up and telling us we should be more empowered that doesn’t mean there’s an automatic roadmap to high confidence, high self-esteem, and self-empowerment.
How can we even begin to strip away the false narratives media has told us about how a woman should look, feel, and act? Well, finding empowerment doesn’t have to feel impossible.
Empowering ourselves doesn’t always mean making some big life adjustment, or the drastic upheaval of who we are.
Empowerment can start small. It can look like little actions we take every day to feel more confident, whole, and like we have a right to be here. Because spoiler alert: we do!
In this post, I’ve outlined 6 little ways we can work on becoming a more empowered woman every day. The goal is to help each of us feel more comfortable in our skin and to help us reclaim our self-worth.
So let’s jump in!
1) Delete the Phrase "I’m just bad at this"
The world is a harsh critic of women. Everything from our shoes, hair, relationship choices, and education are up for grabs for the rest of the world to debate and hand down judgments on.
So why do we add to this stress by being our own worst critics?
As someone who still struggles with internalized criticism, it’s so hard for me to see women verbally talk down to themselves. Too often I see a woman who is trying to learn a new skill, or who is stepping out of her comfort zone becoming flustered.
What she’s trying to do is hard. But even though it’s normal to struggle, the world has told us we need to be perfect right from the start or we’re a failure.
So in order to beat the world to the punch, she says, “Oh I’m just bad at this.” She dismisses her own ability to learn and grow because she’s been told, “You can’t do it,” by the media, by ‘friends,’ maybe even by family her whole life.
I’m here to say you absolutely can do it. So let’s start empowering ourselves by deleting the phrase, “I’m just bad at this,” from our vocabulary.
Instead, here are a few empowering alternatives!
“I’m still learning.”
“I’m doing better than I did last time!”
“This is hard. But I’m trying.”
“This isn’t easy, but I’m determined.”
“It’s exciting to be learning a new skill, even if I haven’t mastered it yet.”
“I don’t need to be perfect, I just need to try.”
All of these phrases communicate to ourselves that it’s okay to struggle. We aren’t inherently bad at something. Learning something new is awesome, even if it’s difficult.
We not only empower ourselves when we delete the phrase, “Oh I’m just bad at this,” from our vocabulary, we also set an example for other women to follow. We don’t have to be perfect to be amazing.
2) Empowering Sticky Notes
I love sticky notes. The cute little multicolored squares just make me happy. There are so many fun uses for them, from to-do lists to daily reminders to little love notes for our partners.
But you know an awesome use you may not have thought of for sticky notes? Love notes for yourself.
That’s right, take a sticky note, write yourself an encouraging message, and stick it on your bathroom mirror. Heck, take the whole deck of sticky notes and write yourself empowering messages to keep on your laptop, your desk, your kitchen cabinets, your bedroom window, anywhere you want!
These notes can be as simple as “You can do this,” or “Get it girl!” Or you could even write down motivating quotes from your favorite powerful women.
One of my favorite quotes is…
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is mere tenacity.”
Write a note and have the tenacity to love yourself a little more.
Self-love sticky notes might seem a little cheesy. But they’re honestly a great way to give yourself an extra boost. The more we remind ourselves that we love ourselves, the more empowered we become.
3) Do Something Only for You
As women, we tend to do a lot for the people in our lives. Whether it’s grocery shopping for the family, working to pay the rent, taking care of the kiddos, or driving our best friend to their doctor’s appointment, we take care of our people.
Which is why it’s equally important to remember to take care of ourselves by doing things that are only for us.
This could be as simple as closing the bathroom door for 45 minutes with a hot bath, a good book, and a glass of wine.
This could look like getting crafty by designing and building that coffee table you’ve been thinking about for months.
This could look like escaping your normal routine and having a board game night (even a virtual one) with some of your best friends.
Doing something for yourself doesn’t have to look like a week-long spa vacation in the Swiss Alps (not that that wouldn’t be great…). Honestly, when we carve out a little bit of time just for us every day it’s an incredibly beneficial and empowering experience.
When you normally put everyone else first, creating 20 minutes each day to just lay on your yoga mat and breathe, or to doodle in your sketchbook is powerful. It teaches us we have a right to take time for ourselves, and that we deserve it.
4) Validate Yourself Emotionally
Girl, you are allowed to feel those big, sharp, tough, heavy, strong emotions. You don’t have to fit your feelings into a socially acceptable box to be worthy of love or respect.
So often we try and dismiss emotions when we feel they aren’t acceptable. We push down anger, because, “It really wasn’t that bad.” Or we squash down pride because we don’t want to seem full of ourselves.
But our emotions are one of the deepest most intrinsic parts of ourselves, so when we ignore them we ignore who we are. Shoving our emotions down can also lead to unintentional, outbursts or feelings of depression.
So let’s work on the goal of empowering ourselves by validating our own emotions!
First, when it comes to emotional validation we have to acknowledge our feelings. That means when you feel excited take notice. Acknowledge that excited feeling with your mind, and accept that you are 100% allowed to feel it.
This also means that when you feel upset, angry or, jealous you still have to let those feeling exist without pushing them down. Acknowledge those feelings. They are real and valid, even if you feel like they’re wrong.
We cannot control our feelings, but we can control our validation and understanding of them. When we work on acknowledging our emotions instead of trying to push them away, we gain a better understanding of why we feel the way we feel.
This lets us be more emotionally intelligent humans and lets us control how we act on our emotions, instead of letting our emotions control us.
Emotional validation and emotional intelligence are tough. But validating our own emotions is a strong step towards understanding, accepting, and empowering our experiences in a world that often seeks to dismiss us.
5) Take Photos of Yourself
You are always selfie-ready. In your sweatpants watching Grey’s Anatomy, or in your short red dress for a night on the dance floor, you are worthy of a selfie.
Those beautiful, perfectly posed photos we take, with the big smiles, perfect outfits, and body confidence are awesome. But I think we make the mistake of only trying to capture snapshots of our lives when we feel we are ‘at our best.’
Your experience in this life is made up of so much more than perfect skin framed by a beautiful glowing sunset. Empower yourself with selfies of all your varied, messy, everydays.
It might seem weird, but try taking a photo of yourself when you’ve just woken up, with messy hair, circles under your eyes, still cuddling your childhood stuffed animal. You see that? You’re beautiful.
Take a photo when you’ve covered yourself in flour and bits of cookie dough, after attempting to bake chocolate chip cookies for your in-laws.
Take a photo when you’re sweaty and tired after a long bike ride.
Take a photo when you’re snuggling a bowl of popcorn late at night, watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother.
Take a photo when you’re sick and sniffly.
Take all the photos you want. Be greedy. You are beautiful, lovable, and worth it no matter what you’re experiencing.
You deserve to see yourself the way your loved ones see you: candidly, and wonderfully human.
6) Listen to Your Own Needs
Empowering yourself by listening to your own needs can be as simple as getting up from the desk you’ve been at for hours to get a drink of water. It can also mean allowing yourself the space to step back and take a break from a tough conversation.
As powerful and strong as you are, you are human, and you have needs. We can tend to push those needs to the side, and ignore the little things like a stretch, a break, or a snack that our body is asking for.
But someone once said to me, “No one will ever care about you, more than you care about yourself.” And it’s true!
Friends, family, and significant others play an important role in filling our needs as human beings. But you are the only one who can feel that crick in your neck or the anxiety in your chest.
You are the only one who can decide to listen to what your body is asking for because no one else can feel it, no one else knows.
So practice little moments of awareness. Get up and take a few sips of water because you’re thirsty. Scoot back from your desk for a few minutes and take a deep breath with your eyes closed because you’re exhausted. Say ‘no’ to the friend who want to hang out because you need alone time.
Empowerment comes from the knowledge that we deserve a place in this world, deserve to take care of ourselves, deserve to meet our own needs before someone else’s.
You are not selfish for taking care of yourself. You are an empowered woman and an inspiration. <3
How Will You Empower Yourself Today?
What’s one way you’re going to empower yourself more today? Are you going to do something just for you? Will you work on accepting and validating your own emotions? Will you take a selfie of yourself reading in bed after a long day? Leave a “Get it girl!” sticky note on your mirror?
Whatever you do to find empowerment today I’m proud of you, and I’d love to hear about it! Leave a comment below and let’s get the conversation rolling about how every day can be an empowering day.
About the Author
Miriam is a Gen Z college grad turned health, wellness and lifestyle freelance writer for hire. She is a lover of nerdy things, thrift shop fashion, and west coast swing dancing. She uses her background in health and wellness, her B.S. in kinesiology, and her love of empowering people towards better living, to create high-quality content for a variety of needs. Miriam’s greatest dreams involve professional dancing, traveling the world, and writing full-time. To learn more about her, view her own wellness blog, or get in touch check out her website miriambarnes.com, or find her on Twitter, FB, and Instagram @mbarneswrites.
Ending Notes...
Miriam has some amazing tips that I’ve actually used myself so I know they work! Feeling empowered is literally powerful! I mean…really. I went through a point in my life where I never felt empowered. I felt like life was stomping on me like a bug. But ever since starting my self-love journey years ago, I have mastered empowerment – it has become a side effect of self-love. And with that self-love, I have been able to reach my goals and be successful. And give myself grace where it’s due.
If you haven’t been feeling empowered, you can take these steps to feel empowered too! Because YOU ARE AMAZING!
Comments? Questions? Ask them below! I will answer as soon as I can 
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Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular article!
It is the little changes that make the largest changes. Many thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for commenting! I am very happy you appreciated the advice in this post. 🙂
I am in fact thankful to the owner of this web page who has shared this great piece of writing at at this time. Minni Ruddy Sessler
So happy that you found value in this post!