There are times I go through stages of themes and I lock onto an idea or concept I really believe in, and I try to get that message out. I am in one of those stages at the moment and really feel like I have a powerful message that I want you to get in your heart. Back on April 17, I released a blog called Get full to overflowing. I am so passionate about the fact that our success, happiness and fulfillment in life relies on the fact that we fill ourselves to overflowing.

Fill ourselves with what? I hear you asking. Fill ourselves with love, confidence, belief, respect and worth. Fill ourselves with the belief that we are good enough, to the point where those feelings of self-love and belief overflow and lead to great significance and success in your life, and the lives of many other people. It’s the overflow that is the key to this. To really understand what I mean, please go back and ready my blog, https://andrewjobling.com.au/get-full-to-overflowing/ and watch this short video I did; https://youtu.be/ibZS-6ZF6Nk. Also, listen to my podcast, Your value is in you, not the bank, with Kye Harris.

I talk about filling yourself with affirming positive statements, reading inspiring books, listening to empowering audios and podcasts, attending amazing seminars, webinars and workshops and by associating with supportive, encouraging and successful people. I believe in these things totally and do them all on a daily basis. In this blog, however, I want to go a little deeper because, even if you do all these things, you can still struggle to get full to overflowing. Why? Because even though I may be reading and listening to things that empower and uplift me, and pour some water into my glass, if I am not very deliberate, my limiting self-talk and lack of self-love will pour that water straight back out again. So, I want to encourage you to go back to the foundation and understand, accept, forgive and then live.

I can tell you that this process has transformed my life, finally, after many years of struggling to really love myself. For so long, I couldn’t understand why I did and said the things I did. I couldn’t understand why I would give up on things and sabotage myself. I couldn’t understand why I found it hard to stay in a relationship. So, I decided I needed to understand myself. Whilst in lockdown and totally isolated in 2020, I did some serious self-reflection and work to understand this incredibly capable yet insecure man. I read an amazing book, called From Good Man to Valiant Man, by Dr Allan Meyer, and it helped me understand male chemistry, tendencies and challenges. Wow, did that ever open my eyes and help me recognise and finally understand myself in many ways. I reflected on my upbringing, my traumas and my parents’ own insecurities, and it really helped me see how they had influenced my beliefs and behaviours. I thought about the influence of seven years from the age of 16 to 23 at a professional football club and the impact of regular verbal abuse and the observation of some misogynistic behaviour. As I started to understand where many of my beliefs, fears and insecurities had come from, and as painful as it was, it helped enormously.

Then, I made the decision to accept myself. I started to accept and love myself for my quirks, my looks, which is often an area we beat ourselves up about, my preferences and differences and my dreams in life. I started to realise that I don’t need approval from anyone else, I only need to approve of an accept myself. I even started to accept and love my insecurities and fears. I know that sounds weird, but I am a human and I am not perfect, and I can tell you now, I love myself, warts and all. What a powerfully freeing feeling that is.

Then, the biggie, I chose to forgive myself. This was hard, as I have done and said so many things over my life that have led to regret, shame, embarrassment and pain. But I knew, if I was to live the life of joy, freedom and abundance I wanted, this was an essential step. So, I started the process of forgiving myself, with God’s help, for each and all of my mistakes, poor choices, inaction and thoughtlessness. It was a long list, it took time, was incredibly confronting and painfully uncomfortable, but it changed everything. The feeling of letting go of and total forgiveness for the self-bitterness, has given me wings to fly.

The end result of this process is that I feel I am now truly able to live my best life, and that all the other work I am doing to fill my glass to overflowing has more meaning and greater traction in my life. I am so aware that I only get one chance to live my life and I know now that I am good enough to make it the very best life it can be. I have a powerful passion and purpose to impact many lives and I know that the only way I can do that is get myself full to overflowing.

I know there is a lot of fluffy motivational stuff out there. I know that I have, in my time, contributed to that fluffy motivational stuff. Right now, forget about motivation and start in the process of honest self-evaluation and modification. I know you want to live an amazing life of significance and success. We all do. So, as hard as this may be, and in the interest of getting yourself full to overflowing, I want to encourage you to start on the adventure to understand, accept, forgive and then live the best life you can live.