"You're not the person you used to be and not yet the person you’d like to be, but maybe you’re the person you're meant to be."

As a huge proponant of reaching out for support and assistance in obtaining some of the things we need for our joy, I have to admit I was stopped in my tracks recently when I read something that challenged my thinking, and which now has made a tremendous impact on my way of understanding self-help. Ready? Here goes: When you start a goal with the idea of changing something about yourself, it is a sort of subtle aggression against who you really are.

Now if you are like me, you have already come up with 2 or 3 things that could easily be used to disprove or challenge this theory, but stay with me for a second. You see, the idea behind this, in my view, is that the thing you would like to change about yourself must first be absolutely loved and accepted by you first. Only then can you know if you are changing it because you want to or changing it because you need to. The difference here is important. Its like the chicken and the egg. "Need" suggests that whatever you are improving will be the thing that brings you self love, but its the opposite. Self love will bring you the things you need. Not yet? OK.

Here's another thought to help clarify. If you can't embrace every part of who you are, even the nasty, the angry, the irritable, the moody you, then "improvement" would be trying to throw yourself away and become something better. Suggesting that there is something better than who you are right now in all your humanity is an absolute falsehood. Each of us has something unique over everyone else and if you keep hearing that voice that tells you to change, you better be sure it isn't the same voice that depletes your self-worth and barrages you with negative ideas to keep your self esteem low. Sometimes others remind us how lovable we are, just as we are, and this may help to kick start it, but if we are inclined to draw opposing conclusions then taking a journey toward self-improvement without self-love will be like beginning a marathon without shoes. You will not get very far.

I don't know if I can buy that I am perfect, Lord knows, but I do believe I am perfectly "me", and that no one else could ever try to be. That makes me one of a kind, and one of a kind in most circles is extremely valuable.

If you're still not onboard, go spend a buck on iTunes and download Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are", and maybe when you look in the mirror today you may appreciate just a little bit more the person who has always been the most worthy of your love; you. Thats no small change.