Life is like a mirror. Who we believe we are and how we react to the world, reflects back how we really view ourselves. “Self-Love” may seem corny, but it is the cornerstone of creating peace in our inner world. When you understand your self worth, you start acting in a new way. You start doing things just for you. You shed your ego, and you trust the process. Here are 13 ways self love will transform your life.
1. Stronger Mindset
Self love builds a strong mindset. Through your mental choices you reinforce a strong, resilient mindset that allows you to withstand a lot more adversities. What you focus on grows, so start taking care of your mind just like you would your body. Through self love, you take time to take care of your mental health, you are more resilient to failure and rejection, and you are more aware of where you put your attention. Self love is like a dead-lift for the mind.
2. You Take Better Care of Your Body
Your body is what carries your mind and soul, so it is important to treat your body like a temple. When you love yourself you respect your body. You are more conscious of the foods you consume, how active you are, and you give yourself the appropriate amount of rest. How you feel on the inside is a reflection of how you look on the outside.
3. Positive Relationships
We accept the love we think we deserve, even subconsciously. Loving yourself means surrounding yourself with amazing people and it equates to having a low tolerance for those who do not treat with you respect and the care you deserve. This not only goes for romantic relationships, but relationships with friends and family. Once we know our worth and understand what true respect feels like, we shed the weight of those who aren’t treating us the way we deserved to be treated and create space for people in our lives who value us.
Through self love, we no longer stay in relationships out of scarcity or insecurities. We stop questioning if we will ever meet a person who will treat us better than the person we are with currently. We won’t bargain and accept patterns of disrespect, like cheating or lying. You learn that you do not trade a relationships for respect. Whether we are leaving toxic romantic or platonic relationships, we trust in ourselves that we are stronger without these types of relationships and that we are creating space for positive relationships in the future.
4. Confidence & Abundance Mindset
It’s time to strut your stuff, but don’t confuse confidence with cockiness. When you love yourself, you are confident in who you are and your abilities. Your personal confidence does not take away from yourself or other people. To be confident, you must have an abundance mindset, which means you believe that everybody can share in the wealth of life. It is not a competition of who is better, but a celebration of what each individual. Having an abundance mindset is not feeling inferior to others, instead, we raise each other up.
You start to really believe in yourself and undoubtedly try new things. When you love yourself, you transition from living a world of lack, to a state of abundance.
5. Celebrate Your Uniqueness
When you love yourself, you celebrate your uniqueness. Often growing up, we often strive to fit in, which means we end up compromising part of who we are to be part of a group. When you truly love yourself, you let your true personality shine through. Your opinions, style, and personality are not hidden from others. By being yourself, you inspire and validate others to truly express themselves as well.
“Be Yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
Oscar Wilde
6. Increased Drive and Motivation
Who’s to say you shouldn’t achieve your dreams? Why not try learning to dance or learn a new language? When you love yourself, you believe in yourself and set challenging goals for yourself. Long gone are the days of self doubt or the fear of embarrassment. When you truly love yourself, you hold our self accountable for your goals. Nothing will hold you back from creating your own reality.
7. Take Things Less Personally
It can sting when people make critical comments about who we are. It challenges our belief in our self and can make us feel badly if we feel our self worth has been threatened or prodded. BUT, when you love yourself, you know yourself worth and you start to take things less personally. Watch as the negative comments bounce right off you. You are now able to separate constructive criticism, with judgment.
“What other people think of you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.”
Jen Sincero
You are no longer a sponge that just absorbs everything that is reflected back to you. You have a choice and create meaning in how others treat you.
8. You Have More To Give
On airplanes, they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others. This is a true metaphor for life. Unless we take care of ourselves first, we can not truly be as helpful to others. It is extremely hard to be giving when your cup is empty or never refilled.
“My cup runneth over.”
Hebrew Bible
Self love means valuing your own self care first. It is not selfish to take care of yourself, if this means you will later be able to better serve others.
9. Positive Self Talk
Who has time for self shame? Not someone who loves themselves! Self talk transitions from “I’m an idiot for failing that test!” to “Failing that test sucked, but that just means I have to study smarter next time.”
You become more compassionate with yourself as if you were talking to a friend. When you look in the mirror, you start appreciating who you see reflected back and you speak to them with kind words. Who knew you could be so kind to yourself?
10. We Allow Ourselves To Be Heard
Long gone are the says where you sit back and be a wall flower. At this point, you realize it’s okay to voice your opinion. No, this doesn’t mean you will always feel right or entitled, but you are open to sharing what you value with others and are able to have an open discussion about it.
A lot of us use to be shy and have an agreeable nature. It was easy to sit back and let others pick the movie or be agreeable, just for people to like us. Now, we are not afraid to share our opinions or advocate for ourselves. We realize that some people will love us or hate us for our values, choices, or opinions. It’s okay, you now know its fine to not be every bodies cup of tea!
11. Life Stops Being a Competition
You do you, baby boo! Unless you are participating in something structurally competitive, like sports or getting the promotion, your life stops revolving around competition. You cheer for yourself and you cheer for others. Life is no longer a competition and you are not comparing your looks, talents, and achievements to others in order to feel good about yourself. No need to prove yourself or validate who you are based on the lack of others.
You can appreciate the unique beauty and talent of others while being perfectly happy with what you’ve got going on! Your focus now goes into being your best self.
12. Setting Healthy Boundaries
You are no longer a “Yes” man and you create boundaries for self care. No, you don’t have to take the shot just because everybody else is. Yes, it is okay to say no to the friend who asked for a free photo shoot in exchange for “exposure”, even though she knows you are trying to start a photography side hustle. And let’s not forget, you do stop work when you leave work. Sorry job, just because we all have access to our work emails on our phones does not mean you work all waking hours of the day.
You are now creating space for the life you want to live!
13. You Become Limitless
Nothing can get in your way. You are free to be yourself. Train for gold! You stop feeling the need to prove yourself, because the only person who needs to validate your self worth is you! External drives like what car you drive, your job title, how much money you make compared to xyz, go out the window. Ain’t nobody got time for that. You now realize that happiness is an inside job. While we are figuring out all areas of our life, we don’t forget that how we feel and treat ourselves, will reflect the life we want to live on the outside.
Your life has now transformed!
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