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Brooke’s Top Picks To Celebrate Loving Yourself
Be Kind To Your Mind Mug by SoeursMode
- 11 oz ceramic mug
- White, glossy finish
- Dishwasher and microwave safe
- Reads “be kind to your mind”
I am Strong I am Brave I am Enough Rings by SimpliStampedJewelry
- 3 stackable rings
- Made of sterling silver
- Can be purchased as a set or individually
- Reads ” I Am Enough, ” I Am Strong,” and ” I Am Brave”
Positive Affirmation Cards by ShopBloomandBliss
- Set of 20 positive affirmation cards
- Designed for women
- Made of cardstock
- 4 x 6 inches
How To Love Yourself When You Don’t Know How
Nothing makes you feel more like a failure in life quite like not loving yourself. No matter what you look like, who you are as a person, or what you’ve accomplished so far, none of it ever seems good enough. And as time goes by, you wonder if you ever really loved yourself in the past or if it’s even possible that you’ll ever love yourself in the future.
The simplest way to learn how to love yourself when you don’t know how to is to take small steps towards realizing that you deserve to be loved, that you accept yourself for who you are, and that you’ll make self-love a priority moving forward.
Without these basic ideas, loving yourself will be next to impossible.
So why is it so hard to do?
Why does loving yourself seem like a feat you just can’t seem to accomplish?
You look around and everyone else appears to be happy, confident, and proud of who they are. Other people have an obvious sense of style and they look amazing while you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. Other people accept who they were meant to be while you hide things about yourself from others like they’re your deepest, darkest secrets. And other people speak their minds freely while you change your beliefs and opinions based on those around you so you can fit in.
You know deep down in your heart who you are, what you want, and how you feel, but you simply don’t love yourself enough to live authentically. You’ve made a habit of accepting the status quo and things are good enough so you just go with it.
But what would it feel like to live more intentionally, to find true happiness, and to really appreciate all of the wonderful things that make you, you?
Loving yourself is not optional. It’s not selfish. And it’s not something you should continue putting off.
Loving yourself is a gift. It’s something you deserve. And it will make you a better, more fulfilled person.
So make self-love a priority in your life. I’ll show you how.
Tips On How To Love Yourself
These 15 tips will teach you exactly how to love yourself when you don’t know how:
1. Realize That You Deserve to Be Loved
The first step to loving yourself unconditionally is to realize that you deserve to be loved. You are worthy of love just the way you are and the sooner you accept this, the sooner you can start working towards self-love.
2. Choose to Be Happy With Who You Are
Being happy with who you are is a choice you need to make for yourself. If you want to feel unconditional love for yourself, you need to accept who you are today and stop focusing so much on the person you think you should be.
3. Discover What Makes You So Unique
Life is a journey, and you will continue to discover new things about yourself throughout your entire lifetime. By figuring out what makes you so unique as a person, you’ll start to see what makes you so special and why you deserve to love yourself unconditionally.
4. Understand Your Importance to the World
There are a million things about you that make you so important but sometimes it can be hard to see those things in yourself. It’s important to understand that you matter and that your importance to the world is way bigger than you can even imagine.
5. Build Your Confidence Level
Building your confidence level is hard work but it’s well worth the effort. Take the steps you need to start feeling good about yourself and stop putting yourself down so much.
6. Realize That This is Your Life
A big part of learning to love yourself unconditionally is realizing that this is your life to live and every life decision is yours to make. Letting other people’s judgment about you or your decisions affects you far more than you know. So it’s time to live an intentional lifestyle that takes your ultimate happiness into account.
7. Value Your Own Beliefs and Opinions
No matter how you were raised, once you reach adulthood, you develop your own belief systems and opinions. These beliefs and opinions are valuable, and you have every right to discover what does and does not matter in your life.
8. Be Grateful For What You’ve Accomplished
It’s easy to focus on all of the things that you want to do, but you’ve already accomplished so many things to be proud of. Learn to be grateful for what you’ve accomplished up to this point in your life and stop pressuring yourself to rush so quickly towards your other goals.
9. Rehearse Positive Self Talk
If the voice inside your head is always putting you down, you’ll never love yourself unconditionally. New habits take time and practice in order to stick, so make a point of rehearsing positive self-talk every single day.
10. Love Your Body
Learning to love your body and accept it for the way it is is a crucial step towards loving yourself. It may seem silly, but start thinking about all of the attractive features your body has and how lucky you are to have your health.
11. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
You’ll always focus on other people’s best physical features and accomplishments when you’re looking for them. So stop staring at people’s filtered photos and reading their endless social media posts, thinking that they’re better than you. Remember, you’re exactly who you’re supposed to be and you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be in life right now.
12. Practice Self-Care
Even when it seems like you don’t have a single second of free time, do whatever you can to take the time to care for your body, mind, and soul. Practicing self-care makes your entire life better and proves that you love yourself.
13. Make Personal Growth a Priority
You don’t just hit adulthood and stop evolving. Make personal growth a priority throughout your lifetime, and you’ll continue to become a better person over time and learn to love yourself for who you are at each of your life stages.
14. Don’t Let the Past Define You
Every single day is a new opportunity to start over. Don’t let your past determine the love you have for yourself now or in your future. If you regret something, learn from it and move forward.
15. Surround Yourself With Positive People
The people you spend time with influence your mood, your thoughts, and your level of happiness. So hanging out with positive people who love themselves will influence you to be a positive person who loves yourself.
There’s no instant fix when it comes to learning how to love yourself when you don’t know how. So you need to think of these tips as a gradual process towards finding self-love and keeping it.
Just choosing to be more intentional about seeing yourself in a positive light is a huge step forward to loving yourself unconditionally.
Remember, you deserve to be loved. You don’t have to rely on others to love you and make you happy. You can choose to love yourself and work on making that love and acceptance stronger every day.
Today is the perfect day for you to start. You can do this.
Sources
- Brain & Behavior Research Foundation: Self-Love and What It Means
- Etsy
- Medical News Today: Why Self-Love is Important and How to Cultivate It
- Positive Psychology: What is Self-Compassion and What is Self-Love?
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What can you do today to start loving yourself more? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Love all of these tips! Positive talking can make such a huge difference, said from experience. Also accepting and loving our bodies and have positive people around us are the best way to begin x
I’m so glad you love them. Thanks for reading.
These are some good tips. Sometimes you have to focus on things outside yourself before you can turn that energy back to yourself. The road to self-love is long and sometimes very difficult.
It certainly can be. Thanks for reading.
So many great tips – there are a lot of people that have problems loving themselves – let’s hope they get to read your post – love the gifts too 🙂
Yes! I hope they do read it.
I agree with this post! Self-love is really not selfish. We couldn’t give love to others if we don’t know how to love ourselves first. Great tips! Thanks for sharing x
Yes! I agree.
I love this post. You’ve mentioned so many great points. Working on personal growth is so important, especially in a world that is constantly changing and evolving.
Good point. You have to stay flexible in life because you never know what’s coming next.
I really love this post, thank you so much for sharing! I absolutely love affirmative cards, they always know how to give me the boost I need. I love giving them a read when I’m having a bad day! Xo
Same. I need to get some for my kids too.
Loving that you open this up with some creative and affirming self-love items! The mind mug is my favorite.
Being open to growth, being in company with positive people, and exploring what makes me unique are wonderful ways to keep in touch with myself.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Yes! I’m a minimalist but I love to have a few key pieces that have meaning in my life. It’s so important that we prioritize self-love.
This is such an important post. I think even the happiest and most satisfied or confident amongst us have days where we struggle to love ourselves. I’ve found investing in myself with various forms of self-care including nurturing my hobbies and living according to my values has helped with this. Of course, loving myself more helped convince me it was okay to spend time on myself. So it’s a bit of a catch-22. I think it’s also about surrounding you with people who can remind you of your value. Whilst it’s not good to rely solely on other people’s opinions of yourself, you’ve got to love yourself because you think you’re worth it, they can help remind you when you need it most. And love you until you’re ready to love yourself again
You make so many good points here. Other people can definitely help you feel worthy enough to love yourself just like they can drag you down if you let them. Thank you!
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to achieve top number 2 because I don’t believe in unconditional love, and I hate almost everything about myself and always have. I’ll never love me for who I am, because who I am wasn’t my choice, trauma choose this for me
That’s so sad to hear. You are worthy of love, and you have a lot to offer the world. I hope that you continue your journey towards self-love and that you find peace in your heart.
A confidence coach I used to work for always said that we’d never speak to friends the way we speak to ourselves and that’s always stuck with me. Love these tips, they’re all so straightforward but so worthy of re-stating and remembering, thank you.
That’s so true. We’re always so much harder on ourselves than on others.
These are all so true and great ways to start loving yourself as it’s so important!!! I think we are struggle with it from time to time. Thank you for sharing ❤️
Yes! It’s so easy to see the good and others and only see the worst in ourselves.
These are such great secrets to loving yourself! It is so important to love yourself too!
It really is. We focus so much on others we forget about ourselves sometimes.
Wow this was such an insightful post, thank you for sharing. I think we all struggle with self-love at one time or another, but these are some fantastic ways to keep looking out for ourselves even during those times x
I’m so glad to hear that. Thank you.
I have written pages of positive, self-loving affirmations. I read through these pages most everyday. “I AM” statements are strengthening and give me plenty of self-love motivation.
Thanks Brooke for this beautiful transformative publication!
That’s a great idea. Trying to get better at that myself.