How to Love Yourself: 13 Ways to Start

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Loving yourself can be one of the most challenging things to do when you go through many ups and down. You care too much about others' opinions that you end up losing the battle. Rather than pleasing other people, you should focus on yourself by building your self-esteem and forming happier relationships that matter. To learn how to love yourself, you have to understand the meaning of self-love. 

Meaning of Self-love

What does it mean to love yourself, and how do you love yourself?

According to PsychCentral, self-love does not mean how you treat yourself with respect and kindness, but your thoughts and feelings about yourself too. You accept yourself wholeheartedly to the point where you want to nurture your growth and well-being.

For many of you, you pay too much attention to others that you don't love the person you are. We tend to be awful to ourselves – self-criticism, unhealthy relationships, self-doubts, toxic substance, and so forth. But regardless of many reasons, it is time to start caring for yourself and treating yourself with love. 

Sometimes people think that loving yourself is selfish, but it is not. If you can't love yourself, how will you love others? If you come to love yourself, you'll be happier and grow into a better person. Self-love allows you to become your true self, supporting your physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. 

You should be happy at being yourself because in the end, you'll always be you. 

Ways to Love Yourself 

Know Yourself 

Who are you? No one knows you better than yourself. Do you know what you love or what makes you happy? If you don't know who you are as a person, it'll be impossible to love yourself. By investing in yourself, you can discover things about yourself like your beliefs, values, insecurities, and likes. 

The first step is to always find the person you are. You should go out into the world and experiment with many things. Only by doing can you know what kind of person you are. 

Practice Self-Care 

Everyone is always busy with their schedule every day. No matter how busy you are in a day or a week, taking care of yourself should always be your priority. Some people love to work, and they neglect their health and well-being. In life, you have to have a work and life balance. You need to practice self-care so that you don't burn yourself out. 

Your health is just as important as your life. Sometimes you need time to rest and reset everything so that you can prioritize. 

Stop Comparing Yourself to others 

One of the things most people pay too much attention to is others. Are they better or worse, more or less than you? Don't waste your time making yourself unhappy with the thoughts you create. People are created to be different and unique. If everyone were the same, the world would be boring. 

You have your strong traits and value, and so do they. If you stop comparing yourself, you'll learn how to love yourself. You'll be able to live your life to the fullest.  

Be Honest with Yourself 

There are times you might deceive yourself and don't know what you're doing. Honesty is a key in all relationships – with yourself and others. 

If you lie and make excuses for yourself, you can't love your messy self. When you accept yourself, you are telling yourself that you love everything about yourself. It can be difficult to be honest to yourself when you want to be someone else. 

Practice Gratitude

What are you grateful for? The simplest way to focus on the good things in your life is by practicing gratitude. There are many little things that people aren't grateful for until they lose it all. 

If you practice gratitude every day, you will shift from a negative to a positive mindset. Think about the people who are poor and homeless. There are people who have no one to love them or no one to love. You should be grateful for what you have and not complain. Better yet, you might be spoiled compared to other people. 

Allow for Mistakes

It was normal for an adult to tell you when you were little: “nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes.” That will always be true, no matter how old you are. 

However, most people tend to be hard on themselves when they get older. The pressure to not make any mistakes is so high that you try your best to never fail. Whether you make a mistake in the past or present, you need to embrace it all. 

By making mistakes, you'll gain lessons that are priceless. You grow into a better person than before. Humans are not perfect, so it's normal to make mistakes. 

Forgive Yourself

It's easy to beat yourself up for a mistake or wrongdoing you made in the past. You feel guilty to the point where you feel uncomfortable. When this happens, you don't feel at peace with yourself. One of the biggest things about self-love is to forgive yourself. Accepting yourself and forgiving yourself is the hardest thing to do because you want to be perfect all the time. However, as humans, we are imperfect.

You need to stop blaming yourself for everything that didn't go right. Some things happen for a reason, and you can't predict everything. Forgive yourself for all the things you've done in the past. Do not hold on to the past, but learn to let go. You suffered long enough. As long as you learn from your mistakes, it is time for you to rise and look forward to the future.

Surround Yourself with People who Matter

The people you spend time with will be the ones that influence you greatly. You will know how you feel when you spend time with the right people. 

If you spend time with people that love and cherish you, you'll feel good about yourself. If you hang out with people who are abusing and using you, you'll end up hurting yourself. If this is you, it is time to say goodbye. You don't need people who don't care or love you. 

There are many people out there who will love and treasure you. If you let go of the people who are not kind to you, you'll learn how to love yourself more. 

Embrace Your Physical Features

A lot of people are always hard on their physical appearance. In this world, many people are very judgmental about how we look. By hearing what other people say, you want to change the way you are. However, you shouldn't care about their opinions. It's not like you need their validation. 

Will you win if you change the way you are? Of course not. You will be the one losing the battle because you listen to others instead of yourself. 

Know your Strengths 

Some of you might think you are not unique because you have no talents. That is wrong because everyone has at least one good thing. Whether it's cooking, drawing, filming, acting, and so forth, you are a special person with great talent. 

Everyone was born with tremendous gifts, but some of you just don't see it. It's hard to access these amazing qualities when you distract yourself and see what other people have. When you focus on yourself, you'll know how to love yourself more and increase your positive feelings for yourself. 

Continue to do What You Love 

Many of you should have hobbies or careers that you love to do. Whether it's filming, cosplaying, cooking, playing video games, and so forth, you should always continue to do what you love. If people don't like your hobbies or what you do in life, then they are not your true friends. 

There will be people who don't support you or accept you, but that's just their loss because you are an incredible person. What matters most is your happiness. 

Live Your Life

Do the things you have been dreaming of or the vision board you created to do. Whether it's something embarrassing or funny, you should try them all. When you are experiencing everything in life, you feel so much joy and happiness. You love everything about yourself and your life. 

You shouldn't try to be other people and live theirs. This is your life, so you should create your own story. Your story is about you and your journey. Design the life you have been dreaming about. 

You only live once, so you should live your life to the fullest. People always overthink things and make their lives more complicated than it needs to be. You don't want to regret anything. 

Understand your feelings 

How do you feel about yourself? Your feelings are part of you, so you should understand them. You shouldn't shun your uncomfortable feelings. If you deny your feelings, you are denying yourself. 

You want to express them in a healthy and good way. If you understand why you are angry, sad, or happy, you get to know and love yourself better.

Final Thoughts 

Learning how to love yourself is something everyone should do. Hopefully, you'll try one of these ideas. You are an important person, so you should shower yourself with love. Everyone deserves to be loved and receive love. By practicing these methods, you'll gradually start loving yourself more every day. 

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next post!