Why You Need To Learn To Love Yourself
Learning self-love is not an easy task. Without doubt, there is enormous pressure on people to look a certain way, act a certain way and attain a celebrity-type lifestyle but life is not always what you see in pictures and unfortunately many people live life feeling immensely insecure.
Worryingly, Good Housekeeping tell us that 61% of British 10 to 17 year olds have low self-esteem and in the USA, according to Alexandra Delis Abrams PHD, 50 million Americans suffer with feelings of insecurity. Low self-esteem is linked to violent behaviour, low academic achievement and even suicide.
Self reflection
Often, it’s hard to appreciate the person that you are and to feel content. However, it can be done. It’s very much about self-reflection and understanding who you are. Some people find meditation a beneficial way to reflect on life, others fill their days with pastimes that they enjoy. Even a simple walk outdoors in the fresh air can help to quieten a troubled mind and put life back into perspective.
Remember that everyone has good days! Those are the days when you feel great. You’ve slept well, your clothes look wonderful, your hair falls perfectly and you instinctively know you’re going to have a pleasurable day. This is also down to mood and everyone’s mood fluctuates. So if you have a bad day, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still love yourself.
You need to learn to feel the same way about yourself on those bad days too. You are not the only person who experiences bad days. Even the hottest Hollywood celebrity has a bad day! You are still the same person, still lovable and still worthy.
Giving back
There’s a saying that is useful to remember, “Reap what you sow”. That means the more you give back, the more you will receive. It feels good to give back, even a little kindness like a small compliment that puts a smile on someone else’s face makes a difference. Why? Well, when you give back something small to someone else, you feel good too and it instantly raises mood.
You need to also understand that self-love helps you to enjoy life’s experiences more. When you feel that love from yourself, you will undoubtedly have the courage to try new things and even chase your dreams. That’s because you won’t be afraid of failing.
Those with low self-esteem often won’t move out of their comfort zone because they fear failure. Once you learn to accept that failing in something you try is better than never trying at all – you will appreciate your strength and determination, this goes a long way to loving yourself more!
Here are a few pointers to help you to love yourself:
- Accept you are who you are, you are individual and unique, there is no one like you and that is very special
- Do something you love every day. Whether it’s watching your favourite TV programme, finding half an hour to read a book, going for a long walk in the sunshine or baking your favourite cake
- Speak to people. Being solitary will not help if you feel lonely or insecure. Just having conversation with others helps to take you out of low-mood
- Indulge yourself. Run a warm bath, light candles, put bubbles in, listen to relaxing music and reflect on feeling good
Don’t be frightened to share your fears. Another great quote is “A problem shared is a problem halved”. Sometimes airing your feelings takes the weight off your shoulders
- Plan something wonderful! You should have achievable goals, be it a holiday, a night out with great friends, saving up for something special – an end goal helps to give you direction and when you achieve that goal, the thrill really goes a long way to loving yourself!
- Be in good shape. If you’re overweight and it troubles you – don’t despair, deal with the situation, take up some exercise, it releases endorphins, that feel-good hormone
- Have a job you love. Again, if you’re stuck doing something you hate, this will not help your self-esteem, go after what you want
- Look after yourself. If you look after the body you have by feeding it well with good nutrition, you instantly respect yourself. If you don’t have respect for your body, you won’t be able to love yourself. Look after your skin too and your hair.
- Be clean because as the saying goes, cleanliness is next to Godliness!
- When you hear negative thoughts, reverse your thinking and turn those thoughts into positives
- Motivate yourself with a self-love quote. Read the following quotes about loving yourself and write them down on post-it notes. Put them on places where you will see them every day and remember to repeat them. You will take it in.
Sixty One of the Best Love Yourself Quotes
1.The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself – Steve Maraboli
2. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it, Lou Holtz.
3. Avoid Focusing on what you cannot do. Instead, focus on what you can do and accomplish without expecting approval and recognition from others, Lisa Lieberman-Wang
4. You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. Buddha
5. One way to feel good about yourself is to love yourself…to take care of yourself. Goldie Hawn
6. Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world. Lucille Ball
7. You’ve got to love yourself first. You’ve got to be okay on your own before you can be okay with somebody else. Jennifer Lopez
8. You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. Buddha
9. We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far. Swami Vivikananda
10. Love other human beings as you would love yourself. Ho Chi Minh
11. One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go.” — Shiela Murray Bethel
12. Loving yourself isn’t vanity, it is sanity. Katrina Mayer
13. Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you. Karl Lagerfeld
14. If God had wanted me otherwise, he would have created me otherwise. Johann von Goethe
15. It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self-love deficit. Eartha Kitt
16. A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. Mark Twain
17. You, yourself, as much as anybody else in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. Buddha
18. Don’t compare yourself to someone else’s highlight reel. Kimberly O Connor
19. I am strong, I am beautiful, I am enough. Vanessa Pawlowski
20. Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. Eleanor Roosevelt
21. Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting. William Shakespeare
22. Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakes. Carl Gustav Jung
23. There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. Hindu proverb
24. Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do in harmony Mahatma Gandhi
25. Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. Malcolm S Forbes
26. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. Oscar Wilde
27. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James
28. Sometimes you have to be alone to truly know your worth. Karen A Baquiran
29. You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company. Diane Von Furstenberg
30. It is never too late to be what you might have been. George Eliot
31. Scarcity of self-value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention or influence. Gary Zukav
32. You can receive all the compliments in the world, but that won’t do a thing unless you believe it yourself. Criss Jami
33. You were born an original work of art. Stay original always. Originals cost more than imitations. Suzy Kassem
34. When you’re constantly thinking of others and what they must be thinking or feeling or expecting, you wind up in this perpetual state of trying to please them. You see yourself through their eyes and you lose sight of who you are. Michael Soll
35. Don’t let hollow heroes distract you from saving yourself. Nikki Rowe
36. Our entire life…consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are. Jean Anouih
37. I celebrate myself, and sing myself. Walt Whitman
38. You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are. Yogi Bahaman
39. Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine. Ralph Waldo Emerson
40. It isn’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to. W.C Fields
41. Love yourself enough to have a meaningful life. Millen Livis
42. If you ever want to love someone, love yourself unconditionally first. Debasish Mridha
43. I’ve finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be? Goldie Hawn
44. The only person who can pull me down is myself and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore. C JoyBell C
45. Accept yourself, love yourself and keep moving forward. Roy Bennett
46. Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out? Ian Wallace
47. When admiring other people’s gardens, don’t forget to tend to your own flowers. Sandbar Khan
48. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you. Steve Maraboli
49. Words always remain words, the world will change. Mayan Kumar Louteriya
50. Even in the loneliest moments I have been there for myself. Sanober Khan
51. To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now. Alan Cohen
52. You can never meet your potential until you truly learn to love yourself. Teresa Collins
53. It’s hard to feel desire when you don’t feel desirable. Christine Feehan
54. To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. Thich Nhat Hanh
55. Whatever you do be gentle with yourself. You don’t just live in this world, or your home, or your skin. You also live in someone’s eyes. Sanober Khan
56. The most important relationship you will ever have in your life is the one you have with yourself. This being said, it is one you learned the least about while you were growing up.
57. Every person is the creation of himself, the image of his own thinking and believing. As individuals think and believe, so they are. Claude M. Bristol
58. Wildflower, pick up your pretty little head, it will get easier; your dreams are not dead. Nikki Rowe
59. Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it. Thaddeus Golas
60. Love only yourself a little bit longer, until you can’t stand not to love someone else. Kiera Cass
61. People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
