10 Ways to Love Yourself (Self-Love) in 2024
It is possible to make your friends, family, and spouse happy and show them, love, without you knowing how to love yourself. You most times feel like you are slaving for them. One thing you need to know is that true love comes from within and it can never be faked.
Self-love is a lot of things but not Selfishness.
What is Self-love?
Self-love is a way of respecting yourself, appreciating yourself, and caring for yourself by doing things that will enhance your well-being. These things may be your physical habits, spiritual habits, social and work ethics but they must be done to enhance your inner peace.
It is when you do things that give you that inner peace and joy. When you self-love, you seldom act from a place of anger when you are with other people be it, friends or family and you can radiate this energy to everyone around you.
What is Selfishness?
Selfishness is being concerned excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one’s advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others.
From the above definitions, we can see that self-love is positive while selfishness is negative. So, let no one tell you that you are selfish when you are only trying to self-love. In case you are wondering why we are bringing this topic up again, it is because you cannot truly love others when you haven’t learned how to love yourself.
Love your neighbor as yourself is what the scriptures say in Matthew 22:37-39. There is no way you would love others if you haven’t loved yourself. When you have learned to love yourself, you make loving your partner easy because you will be able to communicate your needs to him or her.
Here are 10 ways you can choose to self-love.
1. Have a Daily Me Time
Why should we even call it Self-Love if you will not create time for yourself? You are a living entity in this noisy world, it is only very important to spend some time with yourself, every day to stay out of the noise and just be. Try this and you will feel the calmness within you.
2. Have a Great Morning Routine
It is often said that the way you spend the first 2 hours after waking up sets the tone of your day. A great morning routine that includes some of your best activities (maybe journaling, reading, exercising, praying) will help set a good tone for your day.
3. Exercise
Another form of self-love is exercising. Doing the right exercises for your body helps to keep you in good shape which in turn builds your confidence.
4. Affirmations
There is power in your tongue. Have you seen people who are big fans of self-love? They are those that affirm themselves, they constantly speak and write down the type of future they desire for themselves.
5. Volunteering
Volunteering is a way to render your help and time for the betterment of a cause, some people/ community. Being able to volunteer for different organizations helps you feel significant and useful to yourself and your community.
6. Giving: This is just like volunteering, but this has to do with more of letting go of the things you have that you know you have not been using or will be of use to others. Doing this in all sincerity will not only give you joy but also serves as a way of self-loving.
7. Eating a Balanced Diet
What goes into your body has the ability to determine how you feel. Eating a balanced diet which is not necessarily something extravagant will be a sure way to self-love.
8. Respond to people in a positive way
The way you relate with the people around you has a lot of effect of you. If someone offends you, the way you respond or react to the person will also have an adverse effect on your mood. Choosing to respond positively irrespective of the action of people towards you is one of the best ways to self-love.
9. Pray: No matter your religion, you can show yourself love by spending time to the God you believe in. Prayer has a way of strengthening and building confidence in you. Making prayer a conscious and unconscious way of life is very important as it not only gives you a certain level of confidence but it brings peace that helps you to love yourself and and everyone around you.
10. Have Fun
Some of us get soo busy that we run throughout the year without taking timeout to have fun, spend time alone and with loved ones. A very good decision you can make today is to self-love by taking time off work and other tasking activities and spend time with your friends, family and loved ones.
You Only Live Once, So Live. YOLO
Conclusion
With all these been said, take note that a person who does not see a need to celebrate his small wins will find it hard to do that for others because he will see it as not important. Someone who does not have personal values will see no reason to love others by respecting their values.
Be true to yourself by showing yourself love and learning how to love yourself before starting a relationship so that you can make things easier for yourself and your partner.
Today, choose to love yourself without guilt.
