10 Steps To Taking Back Your Power

In my last post, I talked about all of the subtle ways we give our power away without realizing it. Maybe you’ve started trusting someone else’s voice more than your own, or maybe you’ve stopped pursuing a dream you have because someone in your life questioned it. Maybe you’ve spent so long seeking approval that you’ve forgotten what you actually want.

Luckily, you can reclaim your power without force or anger, and slowly return to yourself. Here are 10 ways to get started:

1. Decide That You Are The Authority Of Your Life
This may seem simple, but it’s very important. You will still make mistakes and you definitely don’t know everything, but you can decide that no one else can live your life better for you. Sure, people can offer advice, share their opinions, or point out blind spots but ultimately, they do not get the final say. The moment that you decide to remain the authority of your life, your relationship with criticism begins to change. You’ll stop asking yourself, what do they think of me? and instead you’ll ask, What do I think of this?

2. Separate Opinions From Facts
If you treat everyone’s opinions as fact, you’ll very quickly lose your power. Maybe someone thinks you’re selfish, unrealistic, or too sensitive. Those statements are opinions, not facts. From here forward, when someone says something painful, pause and ask yourself, is this objectively true? Is there evidence to support this, or is it simply one person’s perspective?

That pause can change everything.

3. Stop Explaining Every Decision
So many of us waste our energy trying to make everyone understand us. We justify, defend, over explain. We write paragraphs when a sentence would do. But, sometimes taking your power back is simply saying, “This is what I’ve decided to do.” End of story.

4. Start Keeping Promises To Yourself
This one has been the absolute hardest for me. Self trust is built through evidence. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you strengthen your internal authority. It doesn’t need to be a big promise either, it can be as simple as meeting your personal water quota, going for the walk you said you would, or reading a chapter of the book you said you’d read. Consistency matters more than intensity, and you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone else. You just need prove to yourself that your word means something.

5. Pay Attention To Where You Seek Permission
I feel like this one was the most uncomfortable for me. You need to take the time to notice how often you ask for permission from others. This could be permission to rest, dream, spend money, start anything, stop anything, to switch gears or even to be happy.

Some of you out there are still waiting for approval that will never come! Some doors only open when you stop waiting for someone else ot hand you the key…

6. Collect Evidence Of Who You Really Are
When your confidence is low, your brain becomes a horrible historian. All it can remember are the failures, rarely the victories. This is why it’s so important to write it down! Challenges you’ve survived, goals you’ve achieved, and moments when you trusted yourself and you were right. (I created the Collecting Your Wins Workbook for this specifically.)

This is proof that you’re capable and resilient; that you’ve done hard things before. And, surprise! Your confidence will grow when your memory becomes accurate.

7. Be Careful Who Gets A Vote
You know how people often say “do not take advice from someone you wouldn’t switch places with?” Or “don’t take advice from someone who isn’t where you want to be”? This is why! Not everyone deserves influence over your life. Some people love you but don’t understand you. Some people are simply speaking from their own limitations. This doesn’t make them bad, but it doesn’t make them right either.

Before you consider who gets a vote, ask yourself if you’d trade places with them. If the answer is no, be cautious about letting them, in any way, alter the decision you’re preparing to make.

8. Learn To Sit With Disapproval
Someone will disagree, misunderstand, be disappointed or blatantly just think you are wrong about something. So many of us, myself included, will respond in anger. But we can survive these things… more than that, we can be the bigger person. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion, just like you are allowed to live your life the way you see fit.

9. Document Your Own Experience
One of the reasons I so strongly believe in journaling and documenting your life is because you’re able to keep your whits about you. It’s an anchor in an ever changing sea, truly.

When you regularly record your thoughts, experiences, emotions, and observations, you build a relationship with your own voice, and stop relying on other people to tell you who you are. You begin to build evidence of your own wisdom.

The more familiar with yourself you become, the harder it becomes for someone else’s opinions to replace your identity.

10. Stop Outsourcing Your Worth
I cannot tell you how often I’ve asked myself, “What determines my value?” in one form or another. Whether it’s in motherhood or with my career, my marriage, myself… I’ve probably inadvertently asked myself this question hundreds of times. And most times the answer subconsciously came with external validation tied in.

If your worth depends on approval, compliments, achievements, appearance, or external validation, you will constantly feel vulnerable simply because all of those things can disappear. Your worth has to become bigger than people’s opinions, your success, your failures… bigger than what anyone else thinks about you. (I know, easier said than done.)

The moment you stop outsourcing your worth is the moment you begin reclaiming your power.

Maybe your first question is the same as mine, which was something like, am I supposed to become selfish and shut people out? I genuinely believed that stepping into my power meant becoming an ass hole, but it’s actually about returning to you. And the best way to put that is, for those of you who’ve thrived after a bad breakup, you find yourself doing things the person you were dating didn’t like. You wore the high heals again, you blasted the music in the car, and you hung out with people they didn’t particularly like… taking your power back is doing those things in your relationship. It’s living life for you instead of just for that other person.

At the end of the day, no one else gets to define who you are. That responsibility belongs to you.

See you,
Amy

Not clear on whether or not you’re actually giving your power away? Check out part one: 7 Signs You May Be Giving Your Power Away