7 Ways To Love Yourself
Bud / 
38 Comments / 
March 2nd, 2010 / 
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Take a quick look around the personal development world and you quickly find hundreds of amazing articles that aim to help you in getting the most out of your day. You’ll find ways to change the world, how to quit your day job, dads with a passion for writing, and loads of other advice from awesome individuals. Over the past few years ,I’ve literally read hundreds of blogs and in the process have grown a tremendous amount.
Despite all the tips and life hacks out there, I think the base of personal development comes down to something simpler: How much do you love yourself? I’m not talking about the kind of egotistical love based purely on pleasure and fame, but rather I’m talking about the strength of your relationship with yourself. Today I’d like to share with you 7 ways to love yourself and help you plugin to your identity.
Forgive Yourself
I’ve gone through a period of my life where I was extremely hard on myself. Every little mistake I made, I quickly amplified it into something much larger than it really was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the fact that I didn’t forgive myself was preventing me from connecting with who I really was.
I know people who have carried their mistakes with them their entire life, and as result they remain unhappy at the core. I know what it’s like to make a mistake and feel like you shouldn’t be forgiven, but that kind of thinking is nonsense. There is no action not worthy of forgiveness. Forgiveness may take time, but don’t look back at your mistakes as a fatal flaw you must fix, instead choose to embrace them completely as the whole person you are.
Forgiving yourself for your mistakes and shortcomings can be difficult and does take practice, but it remains essential in loving yourself fully.
Stop Comparing Yourself To Others
I’m just as guilty as the next person in this area, for this is something that I too am struggling with even today. But as I’ve come to realize the more you compare yourself to others the less self worth you place on yourself.
When I became the main writer of this blog back in early February, I was somewhat insecure as to how I was going to be received. Taking over one of the most popular personal development blogs in the world is no easy feat, especially when Glen provided so much value day in and day out.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have moments where I would compare myself to the past successes of Glen and PluginID, which as I soon found out was a stupid and pointless. It was because of writing this article that I came to understand how foolish it is to compare yourself to others. Only when you stop comparing yourself to others can then you then begin to love yourself. I think it’s ironic how easily this article has ‘flown’ :)
Stop Seeking Approval
Seeking approval is similar to comparing yourself to others, and it’s fair to say that we all do it from time to time. I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never sought approval from my family or friends, but I’m also going to tell you that when approval was my main focus those were also not the happiest times in my life.
Over the past year or so I’ve come to realize that my career path probably won’t be the most accepted by my friends and family, that is I want to be an entrepreneur, a writer, and a public speaker. Yet, I’ve come to discover that when you continuously seek approval from others to validate your own self worth, you’re simply damaging yourself relationship with yourself. I’ve accepted that my line of work might not be the ‘safest’ but I’m OK with that.
Not seeking approval doesn’t mean to not care. I can say without hesitation that I genuinely care about what my family and friends think, however it’s important you stop the process of seeking. When you rely on being happy from an outside source your setting yourself up to be miserable.
Believe In Yourself
Loving and believing in yourself go hand in hand. You can’t love yourself if you don’t believe in yourself, and you can’t believe in yourself if you don’t love yourself first. To fully experience what it means to live you must have a confidence in all you do, even during the times in which you come up short.
Believing in yourself can be hard at times, especially when nothing seems to be going right, but it is during those times that you need your own love the most.The wonderful about believing in yourself is that you are the only one responsible. You don’t need a stamp of approval before you can to begin to have faith in yourself.
Trust in your judgement and know that through both the good and bad you are worthy.
Practice Silence
Some of my happiest moments have occurred when I’m simply sitting in silence by myself. While I can be a very social person at times, I also need to have my alone time. For me, this sometimes means meditation, or sometimes I’ll just go for a long walk. Practicing silence allows for you to get a glimpse of the person you really are.
I know the act of practicing silence may not qualify as love for some people,but I feel I’m most connected with myself spiritually when I’m still. While I don’t resonate fully with any one particular religion, I’ve had my most spiritual moments when I’m sitting in complete silence.
Practicing silence allows for you to turn off all that chatter and self doubt and directly experience the bliss of being alive. You owe it to yourself to be silent at least once a day.
Eat Healthy And Exercise
Part of loving yourself is allowing your body to be in its top form. An occasional indulgence in alcohol or some fast food isn’t the end of the in the world but making a habit of destroying your body is. Many don’t realize, but your relationship to your physical body and mind is very important.
Truly loving yourself means that you take care of your body and do everything you can to keep it in good shape, both physically and mentally. Don’t expect to have a good relationship with yourself if you abuse the machine consistently.
A few weeks ago I realized that I wasn’t taking as much care of my body as I should be, so I committed to going to the gym 5 days a week. While it’s only been a few weeks, I’ve already noticed the benefits of going to the gym and eating healthy. Small steps make a massive difference.
Express Yourself
One of the greatest ways you can love yourself is to express your gifts, whatever they may be. Finding and honing your brilliance is a way to reveal what it is that makes you remarkable. Do you enjoy to write? Share your stories with the world. Do you like to draw? Paint until your hearts content. Do you like helping people find their purpose? Do so by connecting with as many people as you can. It doesn’t matter what your passions are, express them to the best of your ability.
Unfortunately, Some people chose not to express their talents and passions because they feel as if they might get ridiculed or made fun of. But the reality is, failing to express yourself is failing to love yourself. Loving yourself comes down to expression.
Are you able to express your beauty within? As one of my favorite runners Steve Prefontaine once said, ” To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
Loving Yourself
If you really want to change the world, if you really want to experience that life you’ve always desired, you must first love yourself fully, because all the advice in the world won’t matter if you don’t.
It won’t always be be easy, but your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have. Make each day a day in which you continue to deepen your relationship with yourself and experience the life you know you were meant to live. The world depends on you to love yourself.
I love myself.
The more important question is, do you?
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Ohhhhh, Bud. Another really good post. I’d guess that a lot of us who struggle w/perfectionism have issues w/many of these things but they are ultimately harmful to ourselves. You’ve given me lots to think about.
You’ve come to expect that from me have you not Shannon?
Glad to give you something to think about.
Great post.
It’s funny how we can ignore the little things that make all the difference in our outlook on life. You really honed in on the elemental steps that most people struggle with, and a lot of people don’t want to admit they need help in these areas. (Myself included!) The best part about the post: I didn’t need to read a whole book to be the main message
Cheers,
Jessica
Thanks Jessica!
I think we all struggle with loving ourself from time to time. What’s important is becoming aware of how essential our relationship with ourself really is.
Hey Bud,
Really good post, I can see you are putting lots of effort into your writing! I like the point about not comparing yourself to others. This only leads to arrogance or superiority if you are better than someone and inferiority if you are worse than someone.
It is good to look at others who are successful to try and analyze their traits and character so that you can replicate it. It is not good to look at others who are successful and think “I will never be as good as them”.
Thanks for the link
I want to see some progress updates from your fitness challenge too!
Diggy
Thanks Diggy! Yeah man as I mentioned before this post just seemed to flow really well. I finally think I’m getting the hang of the transition.
I won’t be sharing my fitness updates with this blog as I don’t think it’s a good fit but I might share the goal oriented aspect of it along the way. We should skype soon bro.
Thanks for the comment.
What a great post !
I do think that : to love the others and to be loved, you must love yourself first.
Your 7 ways to love yourself are definitely a must to apply.
Thanks Bud
Thanks Etre!
Nice post Bud. I used to be a person who always compared myself to others and seek approval from others. It made me miserable as if I couldn’t just be myself without constantly worrying. I feel like the most important relationship we have is with ourselves like you say, and to be able to love ourselves is something that makes us feel that if anything goes wrong, at least there will be one person who’s there inside telling us that it’s okay.
Hey Hulbert thanks for stopping by man. Comparing yourself to others is bad news.
Glad you stopped going down that path!
Great points here Bud. Loving ourselves is so important and our relationships with ourselves has a ripple effect all around us.
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Oscar Wilde
Love the quote Jen! Thanks!
Great post! Many people don’t love themselves. It’s time for people to embrace and love themselves. Life is too short.
Super busy, dude, just wanted to jump in and say high 5!
Thanks man. It means a lot.
I’m in Sean’s boat and wanted to come in and say thanks for the link and that this is a great post. I’m glad you’ve drawn out that most of the world-changing stuff we’re up to is rooted in compassion – and compassion extend to yourself as much as other people.
Wow, believe it or not, this post has come in timely manner (again!), right when I’ve just read another post in social-networking forum that mainly highlights the importance of, simply, BE Yourself, and TRUST yourself, & just DO it! instead of asking (& especially, comparing) with other people’s paths or ways of life, and trying, or worse, seeking to imitate 100% of their paths!
I mean, even each of our fingerprint is already different, then how does it make sense for someone to “copy 100% exactly” other people’s paths or successes? It simply isn’t going to be possible, don’t you think so?
It’s best to look at other succesful people as an example ONLY,
but then eventually we have to find our own way/path to success (whatever that means, even to each of ourselves), and it’s all done by simply BE ourselves! and loving yourself.
I also love that part about Expressing Yourself,
because I feel that’s one of really the most important thing that can make someone feel truly alive of being him/herself, while ‘connecting’ to the world/universe!
now,..am I going too deep here? lol
Hey I really like this kind of stuff.
Thanks I don’t get who is writing, or who is in charge of the site now, is this a guest post?
Hey Alex… Might I suggest you reading the article.. “It’s Time For A Face and New Journey” That should clear things up. Thanks for stopping by.
Bud, a classic post. Really, really solid examples. My favorite of yours yet.
Nice post. Damn perfectionism is my cryptonite! I find it hard to accept things the way they are without attempting to ‘better them’. Even though in my web designing – it works wonders. In my personal life – not so great.
Eat Icecream – Lots of it.
HA! You and your Icecream Jonny..
I think a lot of other challenges do come down to that. It’s hard to understand and live your values, or accomplish your dreams, unless you first have that powerful, loving relationship with yourself.
Absolutely Thekla. Thanks for the comment.
I think that the hardest thing that we can do is forgive ourselves. It is a necessary step though. I am not sure how it is around the world but in America people can be very hard on themselves. This makes it very challenging for them to forgive themselves. They feel as if they let themselves and other down. But in reality they haven’t. They just need to reframe their thinking.
Vince
Hi Bud.
#2 is a big one I keep in mind. Comparing myself to others has always slowed me down when I have done it. I haven’t seen one good thing come from it.
Eating healthy and exercising is something I have always had as part of my routine, and I think that is one of my advantages. I have been running and playing basketball and so on continually.
Expressing ourselves sure is important. When I do it, I feel great. When I don’t, I feel like an cooked onion. I’m joking there. I’m not sure what a cooked onion feels like. It sure is good to express our thoughts though.
Great post! Thank you for sharing your insight!
Loving ourselves is so very important. I know that I struggled with this aspect of my life for many years. I was a big bully. Only after repeated depressions did I decide to make a change.
For the past 4 years I’ve made repeated efforts to adjust my perspective through Yoga, writing, meditation, 30 day trials, books, friends, and conferences. All my effort has paid off. With the focus of life being about happiness I’ve reached levels I never thought possible. I no longer am depressed, angry, or lonely.
We all have this ability. It’s starting with the basics and slowly adding tools throughout our lives. Great post Bud!
I really enjoyed this article. I think that its easy to get so bogged down in fixing the world that we forget the importance of the way we treat ourselves. The whole world benefits when we first take the time to love, respect, and honor ourselves.
Great one Bud!
“If you really want to change the world, if you really want to experience that life you’ve always desired, you must first love yourself fully, because all the advice in the world won’t matter if you don’t.”
And if you do all the good things your article discusses and more, you can still come down with an incurable rare disease at age 37 and end up mostly bedridden, completely housebound and with few productive hours a day.
Then you learn how to love yourself even though you know you won’t be changing the world and not only won’t achieve the life you wanted, but find that you’ve lost almost everything you had and most of what you used to be as a physical person.
Sounds hard but definitely doable – that’s where I’m at today.
Interesting what you say about health & fitness, I’ve found that the more I love myself and care about my body, the more I lose weight and have motivation to get fitter. So much of obesity and unhealthy living is born out of a low self value.
Hey Bud,
Thank you again for the chat on Skype the other day.
Also great post. My favorite on here is Practice Silence. Sometimes my brother will come home to see me hanging out in the living room, by myself, just sitting there. He’ll ask “What’re you doing here all alone without the TV on?” I’ll say, “I’m just chillin man”. He always gives me a weird look look and turns on the TV!
When your days are constantly busy, sometimes sitting in silence is the best way to recharge and relieve your stress.
Tony
yes we should stop comparing ourselves with others
good and bad sides of comparing yourself to others
bad if you use it with fear of rejection, thinking you are not enough
you focus too much on your bad sides
can’t accept/face yourself
deny your potential through fear
use it to brag
don’t love yourself
good if accepted and realised your weaknesses and enthusiastic to improve
you want to know a better strategy
want to learn from other’s mistakes
you don’t have envy and know we are unique in every life experience
you want to know what makes the person tick
you want to improve your perspective
assimilate a better perspective
want to teach
show your insights
if you celebrate the success of others thinking they could use that success to
invent something useful for the advancement of humanity if that success
sounds good from your perspective.
All of the personal development I’ve read so far emphasises too much on the bad side.
I did it the good way when looking for a better strategy to study by asking a friend
When it sounded good, I said “I am very proud of you”, because the strategy sounded very logical to me.
the bad sides you wrote are good.
So I’ll rephrase it for you: Stop comparing yourself to others if you focus on too much on the bad side of yourself.
This is only a manuscript for my future blog.