7 Tips to Love Yourself
Last updated on April 17th, 2024 at 03:23 pm
Self-esteem is the positive or negative assessment that we do of ourselves. This assessment is followed by feelings of personal value and self-acceptance.
Thus, self-esteem includes different concepts, such as self-confidence which reference the security that we present in own selves when facing different situations that can be related to different areas of our lives.
Self-assessment means the judgment that the subject does about itself, and self-concept is the opinion that someone has about himself or herself.
It is very important to differentiate self-concept from self-esteem, they have a close relationship and can not exist without the other but have different meanings.
The self-concept is the representation that we have about ourselves, including the perception of our abilities, skills, and defects. So, when the assessment of this representation is positive is when we talk about high self-esteem and low self-esteem when the assessment is negative.
Having healthy self-esteem is key to successful development because it influences all areas of life.
Good self-esteem stimulates a better mood and general well-being, motivation, and energy, it is one of the most important protective factors, it involves the protection from developing psychological and social problems.
Good self-esteem implies respect for oneself, self-care, and satisfaction with the self.
This introduction has been made with the objective of understanding the different concepts with which people deal in their routines but many times do not even know what they are and use them on a wrong day.
Thus, once it is clear what we are talking about, we are going to present 7 different tips that if we include them in our lives will help us to fall in love with ourselves, which means, developing high self-esteem.
1. Change the Way you Talk to Yourself
Thinking positive. Sounds easy but is clearly one of the most difficult things to put into practice because it implies a cognitive change.
Start to restructure all the disadaptative patterns of thinking that you have.
No more saying to yourself :
- ‘I can’t’
- ‘I don’t deserve it’
- ‘It’s not going to work’
Change these destructive sentences for:
- ‘I’m going to try it’
- ‘I’ve worked for it’
- ‘I’m going to be fine’
Forcing yourself to look to the positive side will help you to break the circle of negativity, if you realize how many things you have to value it will be easier for you to think positively.
2. Accept Yourself
That means acquiring a state of complete acceptance.
Stopping and seeing the different situations in which we have been and not blaming or regretting it, otherwise, accept it.
3. Forgive Yourself
When you overestimate your failures and do not want to accept them as a part of your developing process you may be paralyzed by an emotion called guilt.
This emotion is going to make you live with the intrusive thoughts of ‘Everything could have been different if I did not act like that‘, it wouldn’t happen. These types of thoughts just involve pain.
Therefore, try to see it from another perspective and be compassionate with yourself in order to forgive yourself and keep going.
4. Don’t Compare Yourself
This could be one of the most difficult ones because we live in a world that generates constant comparison.
Every person is different and you just can control your own life, so focus on yourself.
Envying the life of others just will make you feel unfortunate. Thus, focus on your own way and on becoming your best version without comparing with others.
5. Set Realistic Goals
Your goals and objectives must be realistic because in this way you will feel closer to them and that will increase your own motivation.
You will feel better and more satisfied when you see that you are achieving your goals, so set goals that are realistic, taking into account your own resources.
6. Learn to Say No
We have learned thought about saying ‘no’ that it is not adaptive, we thought that saying no makes us selfish or a bad person.
The thing is that you need to try to balance your own needs and the ones of the people that surround you.
Saying no implies establishing limits, which is followed by huge respect for yourself.
A person that knows how to say no and prioritize himself or herself is a person that is loving himself or herself.
7. Give Yourself Time
Have you ever had a date with yourself? Probably not, and it is clearly the best way to find your own way and understand yourself better.
Therefore, start doing activities for yourself that make you happy.
Author Bio: Fatima Jihad is a psychologist specialised in Clinical Psychology. Her interest and experience in this area allowed the development of this articles. She has been graduated by the University of Valencia, and you can find more about her in LinkedIn: Fatima Jihad
