Self - Love : Come Fall In Love With Yourself

What is Self-Love?

Many people mistakenly believe that self-love is the same as selfishness, or having a big ego. It’s not. So, what do we mean when we say “self-love”? Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Self-love is not simply a state of feeling good. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Self-love means not settling for less than you deserve. 

Loving yourself doesn’t mean you think you’re the smartest, most talented, and most beautiful person in the world. Instead, when you love yourself you accept your so-called weaknesses, appreciate these so-called shortcomings as something that makes you who you are. When you love yourself you have compassion for yourself.

You take care of yourself like you’d take care of a friend who is in stress. You treat yourself kindly. You don’t criticize yourself. Self-love is a practice and it’s a skill that takes work.

Self-love is something that is unique to each person. The definition of self-love is “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness.” For some, that means simply being aware of how you’re feeling and what makes you feel better. And no two people are the exact same when it comes to what makes them happy.

Every single person deserves love and has the potential to be more than they know. No matter what your circumstances are, no one can take that away from you or make you think you’re not worth loving. A self-love is a tool that can help you change your mindset regardless of what’s happening around you.

Why is Self-Love Important?

Every single day we are bombarded with stress and responsibilities. The opinions of others ring in our ears and we rarely have time to just sit and think. We look in the mirror and don’t like what we see. This is why self-love is so important.

No one has a better understanding of your innermost thoughts and needs than you do. Even when you try to share with others how you feel, they may empathize and show compassion, but they’ll never quite experience life the same way you do. The number of people who know you better than you know yourself is probably very slim if existent at all.

You are the only person that’s with you all day. You know all of your thoughts and feelings. Since this is the case, you ultimately influence yourself more than anything in your environment. That should tell you how important it is to treat yourself well! If there was someone in your life that constantly treated you poorly by saying you’re not good enough, pretty enough, or worth fighting for, you would hopefully kick that person out of your life! So, don’t treat yourself that way.

Self-love is essentially making yourself your own biggest fan. This is a role that no one else can fill (although it’s certainly wonderful to have family and friends that support you). The truth is that even if everyone else is rooting for you, it will be incredibly hard to succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.

How do you practice self-love?

Self-love is a great practice that doesn’t need to take extra time or money. Focus on self-love practices that only require you to replace something in your day-to-day life, not add something. The goal here is to help to create a better inner dialogue so you can appreciate yourself on a deeper level by replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Like most relationships in life, building a relationship with yourself takes consistent effort, and requires us to take things one step at a time.

1. Focus on your self-talk

“You live the words you tell yourself in your mind.” Self-talk is the act of talking to yourself either aloud or mentally. No matter good or bad, these are the messages that you are telling yourself all day long about yourself. The messages you tell yourself will encourage and motivate you, or they will limit you because they are negative. So choose it wisely.

2. Choose positivity

“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” So choose positivity. Look through a lens of positivity or optimism. Accept that the shift to positivity will not happen overnight, it will take practice to become a habit. Set limits for yourself. You do not need to take on the whole world, just the battles you choose to be a part of.

3. Practicing good self-care. 

You will love yourself more when you take better care of your basic needs. People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, and healthy social interactions.

4. Find your happy place

Think of a place that makes it simple to just be. Sit quietly and embrace the here and now, not thinking about what's due at work or what bills need to be paid.

5. Celebrate the tiny wins

Celebrate when something good happens! You don’t have to throw a party or buy something expensive. Call up a friend for a movie night, or take yourself to dinner.

6. Making room for healthy habits 

Start truly caring for yourself by mirroring that in what you eat, how you exercise, and what you spend time doing. Do stuff, not to “get it done” or because you “have to,” but because you care about you.

7. Speak kind words

There are so many ways to be kind to yourself. Physically, we can eat healthy, exercise, and rest. Socially, we can find people that make us smile and support us. And mentally, we can cut ourselves some slack and speak kind words to ourselves! This practice is intended to replace all of those negative things we think about ourselves during the way.

8. Choosing ourselves

Choosing ourselves even if it means upsetting others and not being popular anymore. Even if it means we leave a party before anyone else because we feel tired, overwhelmed, or just plain feel done with the crowd.

9. Forgive Yourself

We humans can be so hard on ourselves. The downside of taking responsibility for our actions is punishing ourselves too much for mistakes in learning and growing. You have to accept your humanness (the fact that you are not perfect) before you can truly love yourself. Practice being less hard on yourself when you make a mistake. Remember, there are no failures if you have learned and grown from your mistakes; there are only lessons learned.

10. Express yourself

It’s so important to find ways to really express yourself and feel free to be totally you. Whether it’s dancing, writing, singing, painting, acting, cooking, making music, sketching, pottery, or poetry – everyone has something that does it for them. It’s often something we did naturally as children. It’s always something that makes us feel fully alive.

11. Allow yourself to make mistakes

We’re told again and again from a young age “nobody’s perfect, everyone makes mistakes.” But the older you get, the more pressure you feel never to fail. Make mistakes so you can learn and grow from them. Embrace your past. You’re constantly changing and growing from who you once were into who you are today and who you will be one day. So, forget about that voice in your head that says you need to be perfect. Make mistakes — lots of them! The lessons you’ll gain are priceless.

12. Be grateful

Having an attitude of gratitude is a fabulous way to practice self-love! Many people keep a gratitude journal, which is amazing. They will be able to look back on their lives with a sense of positivity and hope for the future because they took the time to record the things that truly matter.

13. Be YOU

One way to practice self-love is to recognize that you are YOU for a reason. Your unique talents and abilities are yours to develop and cultivate. Do not waste your precious time trying to change things that don’t need to be changed. Instead, focus on enhancing those abilities and attributes that make you unique.

14. Trust yourself to make good decisions for yourself

We so often doubt ourselves and our ability to do what's right, when most of the time we do know in our hearts what's best. Remember that your feelings are valid. You are not losing touch with reality. You know yourself better than anyone else, so be your best advocate.

15. Connect yourself with nature

Nature teaches you that there is nothing wrong with you. It displays incredible diversity in all his glory. There are fat trees and skinny ones, short ones, and tall ones. Within a single yellow flower, you might see a shade of pink and realize that it still looks so beautiful. Studies show that people's body image improves when they spend time in nature

16. Don’t worry about others’ opinions

Don’t worry about what society thinks or expects of you. You can’t make everyone happy, so this is a waste of time and will only slow you down on your journey to being the best you.

17. Take a nap/ Get some sleep

Sometimes, all we need is a little extra sleep. Sleep is the most obvious, and yet still the most magical ingredient of self-care, and optimizing it can help you destress, get rid of some mental clutter, and be more productive.

If you choose just one or two of these self-love actions to work on, you will begin to accept and love yourself more. Just imagine how much you'll appreciate you when you exercise these steps to self-love. It is true that you can only love a person as much as you love yourself. If you exercise all of the actions of self-love, you will allow and encourage others to express themselves in the same way. The more self-love you have for yourself, the better prepared you are for healthy relating. Even more, you will start to attract people and circumstances to you that support your well-being.

It’s time to give yourself the most important gift ever: "Self Love"