If you were asked to list the people in your life that you love the most, would you list yourself? Most people would list themselves last or not at all. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t fully love anyone else. Self-love and self-respect can help in areas of personal growth, better relationships, and reaching your goals and dreams.
The key to everything starts with you. Here you’ll find some ways to help love and respect yourself for a more fulfilled and happy life.
Be selfish
This doesn’t mean be a jerk about it to others, but it means that you need to put your needs first. The one step in loving yourself is ensuring that your needs are met. Because without this then you are filling everyone else’s cup and not your own. You can’t fill others from an empty cup. Know when to say no because you are busy, know when to stay home because you need some self-care time, be compassionate towards yourself.
Be unapologetically you
Respecting yourself and loving yourself means also being yourself. You can’t love yourself if you are going against your inner self and trying to fit in to a mold. Find what you love to do, it can be anything from painting to gardening, running to yoga, or anything in between. When you are passionate about something you are truly being yourself.
It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, if they like your personality or your hobbies, etc., nothing they say should sway you from being who you are. Find what you love and do it without a second thought about what anyone else thinks. Be unapologetically you at all times.
Be honest with yourself
This is a tough one because being honest with yourself also means looking at what you are doing wrong in your life and taking responsibility as to where you currently are. If you can look at yourself and realize that you got to where you are because of your actions you can change to make yourself happier.
It can also lead back to the previous tip of being unapologetically you. Because if you know what you will and won’t do, who you are and aren’t, you can learn to love yourself. Set boundaries for yourself so that when you do commit to something, it’s something that you truly will love doing.
Normal is subjective
What is normal? Normal is based on societies perception of it. You don’t have to follow the grain to be you, or your families wishes, or your jobs wishes (unless you love your job and have to conform to a dress code, this might be something different), however, in everyday life, you should not have to conform to being ”normal”. Loving and respecting yourself is about being true to yourself, and by conforming to what others consider normal is not leading you to a self-loving life. It’s like caging an animal that needs to be free.
Define your normal, and don’t let anyone challenge that definition, because your normal is whatever you make of it, and when you are yourself and love yourself, others with the same ideas will flock to you (or you to them).
Respect and love yourself exactly how you are right now
The last and final part of this, is to love and respect yourself as you currently are. We all want to lose weight and don’t like our skin, or our hair, our voice, we always want to change something.
No matter what you feel you need to change in order to truly respect and love yourself you have to take all of that with your perceived flaws and realize I’m perfect the way I am and while I could change things, I love who I am right now. Yes, it’s a million times easier said than done. But this is the key to self-love and self-respect.
Treat yourself and love yourself in your current state, accept nothing less from others, and realize that you are perfect just how you are. Make changes if you want, but the key is to truly love you, right here and right now.