Today I will diving into ways to practice self-love.

Practising self-love can be a challenge, especially at a time when you may feel low due to circumstances surrounding you.

There is never a better time than right now to start putting yourself first and taking care efficiently.

Practising self-love isn’t narcissistic nor is it being self-centred, it’s about being in touch with ourselves and treating ourselves with respect, love and dignity.

The reason why we practice self-love is to allow ourselves to believe in our true potential and to achieve goals.

It’s all about pushing boundaries, exceeding our own expectations and increasing our self-esteem.

We often turn to temporary fixes such as jumping into relationships, online shopping, maybe even alcohol or drugs.

However, without doing the inner-work, such problems cannot be fixed.

Here are some ways in which you can learn to love yourself.

Believe me, it will not be an easy journey but you certainly won’t regret it.

Self-love can take years, so be patient, enjoy the journey and trust the process – no one deserves your love more than you do.

What is Self-Love?

Self-love is a hot topic right now, especially on social media. It’s something that can be difficult to understand, and most people only have a vague idea of what it is.

A few years ago, I thought self-love was taking bubble baths and treating yourself to shopping, which are great, but they cost money and time.

I now understand that I was totally wrong!

Self-love is something that is unique to each person.

The definition of self-love is “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness.”

To me, that means simply being aware of how you’re feeling and hat makes you feel better.

And no two people are the exact same when it comes to what makes them happy.

I would like to point out that every single person deserves love and has the potential to be more than they know.

No matter what your circumstances are, no one can take that away from you or make you think you’re not worth loving.

For those of you in situations that make you feel worthless, please keep reading.

Self-love is a tool that can help you change your mindset regardless of what’s happening around you.

Why is Self-Love Important?

Every single day we are bombarded with stress and responsibilities.

The opinions of others ring in our ears and we rarely have time to just sit and think.

We look in the mirror and don’t like what we see. This is why self-love is so important.

You are the only person that’s with you all day. You know all of your thoughts and feelings.

Since this is the case, you ultimately influence yourself more than anything in your environment. That should tell you how important it is to treat yourself well!

If there was someone in your life that constantly treated you poorly by saying you’re not good enough, good looking enough, or worth fighting for, you would hopefully kick that person out of your life! So, don’t treat yourself that way.

Self-love is essentially making yourself your own biggest fan.

This is a role that no one else can fill (although it’s certainly wonderful to have family and friends that support you).

The truth is that even if everyone else is rooting for you, it will be incredibly hard to succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.

18 Ways to Practice Self-Love – Ultimate Guide!

Practice gratitude

Having an attitude of gratitude is a fabulous way to practice self-love! Many people keep a gratitude journal, which is amazing.

They will be able to look back on their lives with a sense of positivity and hope for the future because they took the time to record the things that truly matter.

For our purposes, I want to focus on the part of gratitude that doesn’t take any time at all to do.

The habit that gratitude should replace is complaining. Complaining is focusing on all of the negative things going on in your life.

When you complain, you essentially disregard all of the good things happening around you.

Being grateful might be harder at first, because complaining is something that’s ingrained into our day-to-day lives, but the benefits are worth it.

To practice self-love, try to think about your personal attributes that you’re grateful for.

Create self-love affirmations

You may have already come up with some affirmations to boost your confidence, but you can also come up with some additional affirmations to enhance your self-love.

Follow these guidelines to create effective self-love affirmations.

Write your affirmation in the present tense. Focus on accepting yourself for who you are, right here and now. Show yourself love in your current state.

Use a first-person perspective. Don’t write statements about yourself as if you were someone else; write them from your own point of view. Here are a few good examples of self-love affirmations:

I am a good person.

I am worthy of love and respect.

I accept and love myself exactly as I am.

Repeat your affirmations at least once a day. It can be helpful to set a time of day for your affirmations to make sure you always remember to do them.

Many people repeat their affirmations in the morning to get a boost of self-love for the rest of their day.

If at any point you feel yourself lagging in self-love during the day, go ahead and repeat them again.

Don’t worry about overdoing it – you’re in no danger of developing too much self-love.

Become mindful

Mindfulness is an awareness of what you are sensing and feeling in the moment without judgment.

Mindfulness tries to steer you from the past or future by focusing on the present.

Some ways to practice mindfulness are:

• Meditation
• Count your breaths or breathe deeply
• Grounding exercises
• Pay attention to your five senses like what you smell, hear, or touch.

In a large 2015 review, researchers found mindfulness-based interventions increased participant’s self-esteem massively.

Rest

Yes, I’m talking about sleep but resting is not just about your sleep schedule. It is about how you spend your free time or how you relieve stress after a busy day.

7-9 hours sleep is the optimum amount to aim for. Try to keep a consistent sleep schedule because rest is an essential part of practising self-love.

Other ways to rest are to focus on activities that you find relaxing. For me this usually means reading personal development books.

Audio books are a great alternative if you’re not a big reader. As well as helping you relax, reading is a great way to expand your knowledge.

Yoga is a great way to relieve stress after a busy day and encourage your body to relax.

I don’t go to any yoga classes; I simply practice from the comfort of my own home using Yoga with Adriene on YouTube.

All of their videos are easy to understand and she has videos for every single thing imaginable.

Self-talk

Do you talk to yourself like a friend or an enemy? You have to live with yourself every single day, so try your best to make your thoughts on who you are positive.

Instead of constant negative self-talk on how you need to change, appreciate who you are right now in this moment.

Feed yourself with compliments instead of waiting for them from others.

Tell yourself that you’re beautiful and be proud for accomplishing whatever it is your achieving in life.

On the days when you don’t feel your best, practice self-compassion.

How you speak to yourself determines a lot with your mindset.

Put yourself first

Start every morning with a ritual to honour your yourself.

Maybe it’s meditating, maybe it’s 30 minutes of daily exercise, or maybe it’s simply reading a book in bed for 20 minutes with a cup of tea.

Whatever it is that soothes your soul, make it your priority.

Do it every day before you tackle the demands of the world around you.

Allow yourself to come first.

Learn how to take a compliment

When someone gives you a compliment, practice simply saying “thank you.”

Don’t add caveats, don’t self-deprecate, don’t deflect by pointing out why someone else should get all the credit. Just say thank you.

Allow yourself to completely own the compliment (as awkward as that may feel at first). Know that you deserve it.

Forgive yourself

This can be a tough one to conquer, but learning to move on from past regrets and accepting that you were the best possible you at that moment is a key step to self-acceptance.

Indeed, even if we’ve become pretty good about being able to forgive others, self-forgiveness seems to be much more difficult.

So, in order to forgive ourselves, we first need to admit to ourselves that we made a mistake.

Take ownership and acknowledge your error – then, try to retain what you learned from the event but release everything else.

Try to appreciate those missteps for what they actually are: a stepping stone on your life path.

Also, remind yourself that mistakes and failures are part of being human. In fact, it’s how we learn and grow.

Remove toxic people from your life

A toxic person can limit your ability to foster self-love.

While you can achieve self-love on your own, it’s easier when the people around you provide positive affirmations and respect.

Attributes of a toxic person may include:

• Being resistant to or fearful of your growth
• Only having negative things to say
• Disregarding your opinions
• Ignoring boundaries you set
• Leaving you exhausted after time spent together

After talking to someone, ask yourself, “Do I feel better or worse than I did before the conversation began?”

Create a self-care routine

This is another thing that looks different from person-to-person. For me, my self-care routine is my morning and nightly routine.

I start my day a certain way to help me set the tone for how I’m going to spend my day.

My night time routine helps me let go of what may or may not have happened during the day, and wake up fresh for the following morning.

I also have a toolbox of things that I do when I feel my self-care battery running low. I like to refer back to these things to recharge myself.

Meditate for self-awareness

Becoming self-aware is a key skill in life, a gift that allows you to identify your self-destructive patterns of thought and behaviour, and find more peace and balance in life.

Meditation, although frustrating and seemingly meaningless at first, is a silently powerful practice with endless benefits.

Aim for 10-15 minutes each morning first thing (or whenever you have time!). It’s worth it!

Set boundaries

Assess what you are willing and not willing to accept. Setting limits and following through on them will encourage your self-esteem.

How will you let others speak to you? Set an emotional boundary of not allowing others to speak in a derogatory manner to you.

Do not let negative opinions from others affect how you think of yourself.

When someone blames their mistakes and ill-mannered actions on you, do not take responsibility for it.

How will you spend your time? There’s no reason to waste time being in uncomfortable situations.

Set a boundary of prioritising leisure time with yourself, and if with others, be sure you genuinely want to. Say no to what drains your energy.

Work with a therapist or coach

You don’t have to learn how to practice self-love alone.

It can be hard to unlearn harmful practices or retrain our thinking, especially if we didn’t grow up in a household where self-love was practiced or encouraged.

A therapist will work with you to set realistic expectations, challenge yourself, and make healthy choices.

The more self-love you have, the better prepared you will be for connecting with others, achieving your goals, and living your values.

While loving ourselves can help us attract people and opportunities that contribute to our mental health and wellbeing, the most important outcome is still that relationship that means the most: the one we have with ourselves.

Explore your spirituality

Faith is the foundation for self-love, no matter what you believe.

Believing in something opens up your soul to the beauty of belief and trust.

It will build your intuition and help you make decisions based on your gut.

When you explore your spirituality, it will also take you on a journey to learning things about yourself.

Those new thoughts, feelings, passions, and raw emotions will make you appreciate yourself for being authentically you.

Stop comparing yourself to others

Thanks to social media, it’s far too easy to see an idealized version of other people’s lives and accomplishments.

Comparing yourself to a person’s curated online presence can be detrimental to self-love.

In a 2018 study, researchers found students who used social media to compare themselves and seek positive feedback from peers were more likely to experience symptoms of depression and excessively seek reassurance offline.

Learn to trust your intuition

Our unconscious minds are oceans of wisdom, understanding, and insight. Intuition, that mysterious inner guide we all have, is a manifestation of this vast untapped world within us.

Learning to trust your intuition will help you to live a life true to yourself and your deepest needs.

Declutter

Whether it’s your car, your closet or your bedroom, it’s time to declutter.

We often overlook the fact that clutter is actually a form of mental and physical constraint.

There is a sense of harmony that comes from things being neat and orderly and this has psychological benefits.

You don’t have to be an “OCD” type all the time, but the mere act of cleaning and decluttering is extremely calming and liberating.

A lack of cleanliness and organisation often leads to elevated stress and depression.

It also suggests low self-worth as your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.

You’ve most likely heard the saying: out with the old, in with the new.

Make space for new opportunities to flow into your life by releasing items that keep you tied to the past and see if it doesn’t have a positive effect on your happiness.

Take a walk or jog outside

Writers, creators, thinkers, and health enthusiasts alike have all commented on the simple power and beauty of exercise.

Not only does walking (or jogging if you’re up to it) clear the mind, but it also refreshes the Soul – and that’s not mentioning the numerous health benefits.

Commit to going for a walk outside for even just 10 minutes a day.

You’ll soon notice the difference on nearly every level of your being!

Walking is a wonderfully straight-forward self-love practice.

18 Ways to Practice Self-Love – Final thought

Self-love is a lifelong journey with ups and downs. You can practice and develop self-love on your own or with the help of a mental health professional.

Loving yourself means listening to your needs, questioning negative thoughts, and removing people from your life who bring you down.

What are you tips for practicing self-love?

I would love to hear your thoughts on what you are doing to change your life in the coming days and years!

If you have any questions please reach out to me via adam@adam-lawrence.org. I would love to hear from you!

I really hope you found inspiration in this article.

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Adam

Hello! My name is Adam and welcome to my space on the internet. Here you can find me writing about subjects such as spiritual growth, self-discovery, wellbeing, addiction recovery and mental health. Please connect with me on my journey and join the community!