Not Accepting that There Are Real Limits to Your Abilities
The idea that you should always be able to attain your goals as long as you work hard enough is another factor interfering with self-acceptance. You will reach many of your goals and should give yourself credit for having done so. Some of us have trouble seeing our successes because we focus so much on our failures and many times the failures come after a lot of hard work and personal suffering. It seems that all that hard work should pay off in our having reaching the goal we set out to achieve. It is hard to accept that a given goal may be out of our reach and that may be because of many factors, including the fact that we may not have the talent or skill needed to reach the goal. Of course there may be other factors in operation that make the achieving of that goal at that time impossible—health concerns, financial problems, family difficulties, extraneous stressors, or any number of other factors acting alone or together. The real trick to self-acceptance is to see that the goal is unattainable, at least for now, and shifting your focus to accomplishing what you can accomplish under the circumstances. That could include evaluating your original goal and deciding whether or not to continue with it. It also means giving yourself credit for what you have accomplished and what you have learned from your experiences.