Being an empowered woman has different meanings for everyone, but almost everyone can agree that a few certain characteristics make you an empowered woman. Having confidence to make your own choices, taking care of yourself in every sense, and continuing to learn and grow is just a few of these characteristics.
What do you want for your life? In terms of career, relationships of any kind, your skills, and practices, do you have goals and ambitions? Knowing what road you want to be on will help to make you into an empowered woman if you don’t feel quite there yet. Consistently make plans for every stage of your life. Write them down and plan how you’re going to accomplish every step. Practice over the course of your life so once you are out in the real world on your own, you know what you want to do in every area. For example, write down what you want your major to be in college, what are you going to accomplish in your four or more years? Be president of a club? Write down how you’re going to specifically achieve this goal and break down this (and every goal) into small, manageable steps. Build on your planning skills as you grow older and think about what kind of woman you want to be. Empowered women set goals and work to achieve them, but also give themselves time and grace when building their ideal life.
Giving yourself grace and cutting out negative self-talk is a major apart of being an empowered women. Giving yourself grace to make mistakes while growing into the woman you want to be, which makes you feel more empowered, is important on the road to empowerment. Just like any kind of improvement, you have to accept failures and be okay with them without verbally beating yourself up. Women are very aware of what hurts their feelings the most and tell themselves these hurtful things to bully themselves into being a better woman, since being nice to yourself sometimes lead to slip-ups in your plans. Empower yourself by accepting your mistakes and continuing anyway because you are an imperfect human. A part of being empowered is knowing the motivation to do so comes from you.
Building your confidence and being confident in everything you do also makes you an empowered woman. Acknowledging your fear to ask for a raise, try rock climbing, or talk to someone and encouraging yourself to do it anyway is a prime example of empowerment. The more you commit yourself to this, the more able you become to do things that frighten you. Knowing you can do whatever you set your mind to thanks to your confidence, feeling strong, being confident as a person, and in your choices, definitely helps to make any woman feel empowered. Making yourself feel confident should become a priority to becoming empowered and might even empower you in itself.
Next, focusing on what makes you happy makes you an empowered woman. Dedicate yourself to a hobby you’ve always wanted to learn, relax when need be, explore, or spend time doing what you’re good at. Doing what you’re good at can make you feel accomplished, which can help you feel empowered. Dedicating time to what you’re good at and becoming even better at it will most likely enable you to learn other hobbies or skills that will make you happy. If spending time with your family makes you happy, schedule more time to do that. Make it important to make time for your happiness, whatever that includes. Doing what brings you joy will help to bring more happiness in your life and when you’re happier, you’ll feel more positive about your life overall, which makes you feel empowered to improve your life and live it to the fullest.
Being important and supportive part in the lives of those you care about makes you an empowered woman as well. Working to become a better daughter, sister, family member, or friend will help you to make yourself more secure in your relationships. Being a dependable and supportive family member creates a feeling of pride and peace in some women, which ultimately creates a sense of empowerment because family is a priority to devote a lot of time and energy to among most women. Being there when friends and family need you, offering advice, letting your success inspire, curbing jealousy, showing your emotions, and creating bonds makes you an empowered woman. Going comfort a friend when they’re upset or being available as often as you can to give advice to your cousin, for example, are good ways to empower yourself through your relationships. Share parts of yourself to bond with others and become closer, which a fair number of women say make them feel empowered and capable because they can maintain positive connections with solid foundations.
Next, writing your own rules makes you an empowered woman. Don’t conform to rules that tell you can’t accomplish what you want or that you have to act, dress, conduct relationships, and work in a certain manner to be respected. Dress how you want, go after whatever job you’ve always dreamt of, have as many or as few children you want, and do what will make you happy no matter society has to say about it. This is similar to doing what makes you happy to achieve empowerment. Living by your own rules will free you from restraints put on women by society and help you focus on what personally makes you feel like you are thriving in your life. Empowerment comes from choosing what is best for you and you alone, and not letting anyone convince you otherwise will help you on your way to empowerment.
Lastly, never underestimating your value and knowing you are worthy definitely makes you an empowered woman. Your value refers to what you deserve, which is whatever you want and have worked toward in your life. You bring value and are valuable to your job and to your relationships and you deserve to be treated according to that value. Teaching yourself not to accept inferior treatment in your life can make you feel very empowered because you are putting your happiness and requirements for respect first. Acknowledging that you are worthy, meaning you deserve to make mistakes and pursue what makes you happy because you are a human being. Keeping this in mind every day makes you an empowered woman.
