Loving yourself isn’t as easy as you think. It takes continuous effort and consistency to apply that self-love in your life.
In reality, while we all want to appreciate and love ourselves more, it isn’t as easy as we want it to be. A lot of times, self-love involves frustration and struggle to heal from things that have hurt you.
It isn’t just about doing the things you love, but it’s about growing and building yourself up to be the person you’ve always wanted to become. In this article, we’ll be discussing the ways you can love yourself better.
How To Learn To Love Yourself
If you want to learn to love yourself, you have to be willing to go through a difficult process.
Self-love is often romanticized, but it isn’t as easy as people think.
Learning to love yourself means healing from the things you refuse to talk about. It isn’t just hitting the gym or spoiling yourself with luxury and gifts.
Rather, loving yourself is more of an emotional and mental process. It’s admitting your faults and weaknesses, and only then can you learn to love yourself completely.
Self-love happens when you choose to love even the darkest parts of yourself.
A lot of people think that the road is as easy as doing the things you enjoy doing, but it’s also a road of transformation, growth, and self-discovery.
Growth is more painful than anyone would care to admit, but it’s an essential part of loving yourself.
Learning to love yourself needs patience and practice. It’s not something that takes overnight, but it’s a gradual process.
21 Ways To Love Yourself
1. Surround yourself with positive people
Without being aware of it, the people you surround yourself with affect your ability to love yourself.
If you’re always surrounded by negative people, it’s only natural that they’ll drain and exhaust your energy.
However, surrounding yourself with people who encourage you will help you love yourself better.
2. Let go of your past
You can’t love yourself if you constantly hold grudges regarding your past.
Realize that your past simply belongs in the past and you deserve to let go of every ounce of it.
Your past no longer controls you and that’s the key to love yourself better.
3. Don’t find validation from others
In order to practice self-love, you have to stop seeking validation from others.
At the end of the day, you hold the steering wheel in your own life and nobody else holds control other than you. Finding validation from others will cost you your happiness.
4. Do what you love
This is one of the obvious ways to love yourself better. Find your passion and focus on doing that as this will help you feel better about yourself.
Your passion is what fuels your energy and light within you, and it’s the best way to make yourself happy.
5. Shift your mindset
One of the reasons why it can be so difficult to love yourself is because of your mindset.
You’ll find it impossible to love yourself if you always focus on the negative side of life.
However, by focusing on the best aspects of yourself, you can appreciate yourself better.
6. Stop controlling things
It’s normal to want to control every aspect of your life. However, doing this will negatively impact the way you love yourself.
By letting go of your need to control, you gain more peace and happiness within.
7. Accept change
In relation to the prior number, you have to be willing to accept changes in your life.
If you want to know how to love yourself better, accept the changes that come, and stop trying to go against it. They say that change is the only consistent thing in this world, after all.
8. Meditate daily
Meditation is an effective way to help you let go of all your self-sabotaging thoughts and focus better on the present.
A lot of our troubles are caused by dwelling on the past or obsessing in the future.
By meditating, you gain better control of your thoughts and of your life.
9. Learn to laugh more
When you smile and laugh more, loving yourself becomes more natural to you. Life is too difficult to be taken seriously.
By looking for ways to make yourself laugh often, you love yourself better.
10. Do a social media detox
Whether you’re aware of it or not, social media is the root of comparison.
Everyone posts their highlight and if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to compare yourself with the milestones of others.
By taking a social media break, you take care of your mental health better.
11. Don’t engage in negativity
Whether it’s gossip, people, or something else entirely, never engage in negativity if you want to love yourself better.
Negativity will drain your energy and it won’t help you feel good about yourself. Rather, it’s best to choose which things you engage in.
12. Choose kindness
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to love yourself when you’re kind to others? Kindness is one of the key aspects in order to love yourself.
How you treat others is also how you treat yourself unintentionally.
13. Step out of your comfort zone
Life is meant to be lived completely. By stepping out of your comfort zone, you let go of the fear and anxiety that may be holding you back.
As a result, you begin to feel proud of yourself.
14. Forgive yourself and others
Just like you should let go of your past, you should also forgive yourself and others.
Doing this will help you appreciate yourself better and this helps you let go of any regrets, guilt, and shame you may be feeling.
Forgiveness is the key to love yourself better.
15. Don’t take everything personally
Unfortunately, we live in a society full of offense. It’s easy to be offended nowadays if you aren’t careful enough.
However, by letting things go, you love yourself better.
16. Embrace failure
Failure is and will always be a part of life, whether you like it or not. You can’t love yourself if you can’t accept that you’ll fail, every now and then.
You need to embrace the fact that failure is how you’ll grow into someone better.
17. Hold on to the good things
It helps to love yourself better when you hold on to the good things in your life.
Whether it’s relationships or your career, the good things in your life remind you of things you should be grateful for.
18. Affirm yourself
No matter what your thoughts tell you, you’re always deserving of love.
Say positive affirmations to yourself that you deserve love and respect, no matter what things you’ve been through in the past.
Affirming yourself helps in appreciating yourself.
19. Compliment others
We live in a world filled with so much hate and criticism. Complimenting others always feels good, especially when you brighten up their day.
After all, doesn’t it feel great when someone gives you a compliment?
20. Work on your goals
There’s something to be said about working towards your goals and achieving them, little by little.
This gives you a sense of ambition and fulfillment and in return, it makes you feel better about yourself.
By working on your goals, you love yourself due to the sense of achieving something bigger than yourself.
21. Take care of your mental health
Lastly, you can’t love yourself if you’re abusing your mental health.
Whether it’s burning yourself out from work or always giving way to others’ needs, taking care of your mental health is needed to love yourself.
The Importance of Loving Yourself
At the end of the day, loving yourself is essential if you want to live an extraordinary life. A lot of problems are caused if you don’t.
Regarding relationships, you’ll always find a way to fill the empty void in your heart since you don’t appreciate yourself completely.
However, if you do practice self-love, you’re secure in who you are and you’re confident in your worth.
Loving yourself means that you don’t seek validation from others and that you don’t chase after other people’s approval.
When you love yourself, you trust yourself enough to make certain decisions.
You’re brave enough to go after what you want and you’re capable of standing up for yourself. It’s important if you want to succeed in life.
Final Thoughts
I hope this article was able to shed a light on what it means to love yourself completely. It isn’t easy to do. In fact, it’s more difficult than it seems.
However, the road of self-love is something that’s essential in living the best life that you can. Loving yourself will help you achieve all your dreams and goals in life.
Especially as we tend to hold ourselves back, doing this act will help you build certain relationships and goals better.
By loving yourself, you’ll live a much happier and contented life. Most importantly, you’ll no longer be held back by your insecurities, fears, and doubts in your life. Share your comments below: