How to Empower Yourself

Do you ever feel like you are on top of the world and can take on any challenge? These feelings of self-confidence, assuredness, and self-determination mean you feel empowered. Empowerment is described as a “process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities, and their society, by acting on issues they define as important” (Page & Czuba, 1999). When you feel empowered, you feel “in power”. Empowerment allows you to feel confident that you possess the power needed to create the life you want and develop the belief that you can accomplish what you set your mind to.

Feeling empowered allows you to pursue your goals and dreams with enthusiasm. If you lack motivation or confidence, empowering yourself may help your self-esteem and quality of life. One study used an online psycho-educational program to help treat people with depression and measured changes in empowerment. Immediately following the program, participants noted an increase in self-esteem and empowerment. Improvements in their quality of life were noted even six months after the completion of the program (Crisp et al., 2014). This means that improving your self-esteem and feeling more empowered positively affects your overall quality of life.

The opposite of this feeling is powerlessness or defeat. This mindset may cause you to feel like a victim and believe your life is out of control. While it isn’t possible to feel fully empowered one hundred percent of the time, having a defeated attitude may negatively affect your physical and mental health.

Try not to worry if you often feel powerless. Empowerment is a trait that we can cultivate within ourselves with time and practice.

Now that you better understand empowerment, how can you start to build it within yourself? For some people, feeling empowered and confident may already be a part of their personality. While building a sense of empowerment may take a bit more work for others. The following are suggestions of behaviors you can develop within yourself and actions you can take to increase your feelings of empowerment.

Negative self-talk can be detrimental to your state of mind. Try developing positive self-talk. You will need to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. For example, instead of thinking “I can’t do That”, think "I can't do that, yet". Replace "That is too Hard", with “I can do hard things”. This simple switch can make a world of difference.

Ideas and goals are great but they are essentially useless without taking action. Empowered people recognize the need to work to reach their goals. Start by identifying your large goals and then break them down until there are steps you can complete today, this week, this month, this year, and so on.

Feeling confident and powerful in your abilities is key to feeling empowered. It’s okay if this isn’t naturally a part of your personality. Practice, until you learn to speak up and make your voice heard. As Robin Sharma said, “Speak your truth even if your voice shakes.” Try practicing what you will say in your head before you say it out loud if you feel extra nervous.

Empowerment is a wonderful tool to drive you toward your goals and dreams. This feeling happens when you feel confident, assured, and powerful in your capabilities. Feeling empowered is important for personal development and other areas of life, such as school and work. People who are empowered engage in positive self-talk, take action to reach their goals, and act assertively and confidently. Feeling empowered can be difficult for people who struggle with self-worth and confidence. Use positive affirmations and practice being self-assured to build a feeling of empowerment within yourself. Once you begin believing in yourself, you will find you are capable of more than you realize.