Can you be truly happy if you do not love yourself?
By cultivating a high degree of self-love it makes it easier to take good care of yourself. It is at that moment that you love and respect yourself, that others are more likely to respect you too and when you love yourself, you’re more gentle, kind, and considerate with yourself.
Life can be hard, let’s not deny it, we have all faced challenges in life and it can become even harder when you’re hard on yourself. Ideally, if you can get to a point where you are your biggest fan in life, and are firm in what your wants and needs are, things tend to get easier.
Want to start with the basics, here are 11 tips on how to cultivate SELF-LOVE
- Sleep as a priority. We all need sleep. Often when we don’t think very highly of ourselves, or priorities everyone else we don’t get enough sleep. It’s easy for all the things and people in our lives to get our time and attention, leaving us with too little time for what our bodies need, which is sufficient sleep. You know how much sleep your body needs, dedicate time to giving yourself what you need, to reset and grow.
- Feed your body better food. You might not be eating as well as you should be. Show yourself that you’re a priority by giving yourself healthy food to eat. Start by changing something small in your diet, which would be a healthier option and make sure you are getting enough nutrients.
- Feed your mind better things. It’s not just your body. It’s your mind, too. Consider the thoughts, television shows, social media, and websites that you’re giving your mind to. Are you spending your time the way you want to or are you literally just passing time.
- Exercise. Taking care of your body with exercise is a sign of self-love. You don’t have to do much it literally takes 30 minutes a day to get some exercise in. If you are not already, start small, 5 minutes chair exercises and you shall see results in no time, slowly but surely.
- Look your best. One of the first things people notice when people aren’t happy with themselves, is that their general appearance is one of the first things to slide. Give yourself the attention you need to look your best each day. Be the best-dressed and best-groomed person in the room wherever you go. This is not about dressing in designer labels but about being clean, presentable and being the best version of you, with what you have.
- Make time to relax. Rest and relaxation are critical to enjoying life. Schedule time into your day to kick back and do whatever you enjoy.
- Forgive yourself. It’s pretty tough to love yourself if you haven’t forgiven yourself for your past mistakes and perceived failures. There’s nothing you can do about the past, so it only makes sense to let it go and forgive yourself. The things that happened in the past are best left there. In the time you have read this, you are not even the same person you were a moment ago.
- List your best qualities. Those lacking in self-love can quickly list all off their shortcomings but struggle to identify their positive characteristics. Remind yourself of all the amazing qualities you have. Write down your positive qualities, even if to you they are only slightly positive, list them all.
- List your greatest triumphs. You’ve done some amazing things. Put pen to paper and write them all down. Go back to the beginning and relive your better moments.
- Separate from those that don’t treat you well. If someone in your life is a regular source of emotional or physical pain, or even spiritual pain, consider letting them go. There are so many people in the world that it doesn’t make sense to put up with someone that doesn’t treat you well.
- Start making the changes you’ve been avoiding. You have a good idea of the changes you’d like to make in your life. Make today the day you start implementing a few of those amazing ideas.
Treat yourself like you matter, and you’ll begin to believe that you do. Our beliefs can be led by our actions. We can change our beliefs to justify our behaviours, take steps to lovey yourself today. Put your attention on your strengths and successes. Take care of your mind and body, believe in all those great qualities you have and start to see the difference.
You’re the only person you have 24/7. Everyone else is available on a limited basis. So, make yourself a priority in your life. You’ll be glad you did!