Love Yourself First: 4 Tips on Cultivating Self-Love
Let’s be honest, romantic love gets all the hype in February. And while we know romantic love is important, it’s not the only type of love we want to practice cultivating this month. Self-love, or the regard for one's own well-being and happiness, is crucial to mental wellness. Remember, the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself!
Improving self-love has been shown to increase happiness, self-esteem, and self-compassion. It also has a number of physical benefits such as a reduction in stress, increased energy, and potentially improved health through diet and exercise. So let’s forget romantic love and put that energy back into loving yourself.
What are some ways to cultivate self-love? We’ve got you covered. Here are 4 ways to start building more care for yourself.
1) Protect Your Energy
We all have a finite amount of energy in a day, so it is important to spend it on things that have a positive impact on your wellbeing. We often find ourselves being pulled in different directions and having to attend to the needs of others. By setting boundaries, and prioritizing our own needs first, we signal to ourselves that we matter.
Start by noticing the tasks in your day that drain you and the ones that give you energy. How do you feel after taking on an extra assignment at work? Did you enjoy getting drinks with a friend? Do you want to go to that baby shower? Once you have a sense of your energy needs, shift your schedule to prioritize the energy boosts. This might mean saying no to going out with a friend or turning down work that falls outside your scope. By putting our own needs first when possible, we’re able to reinforce our value.
2) Start a Journal
Journaling is a simple, yet fulfilling way to improve your mental health. Self-love is about creating a strong foundational relationship with yourself. Journaling provides a space to reflect on your life and cultivate a state of self-discovery, reflection, and growth. There are many ways to start journaling, but our two favorites are gratitude journaling and self-reflection journaling.
Gratitude journaling requires taking a few moments every night to write down 3-5 things you are grateful for. This can be anything big or small. The benefit of gratitude journaling is that it helps to cultivate a more positive mindset and also allows you to identify areas of joy in your own life. Self-reflection journaling can be a little more freeform. The idea here is to write about your life and start making connections between your past and present. This can help cultivate a stronger sense of self and greater insight.
3) Do What Brings You Joy
Once we’ve taken time to assess tasks that boost our energy or aspects of our life that we are grateful for, we can start leaning into activities that bring us joy. This can be as small as watching our favorite TV show or as big as taking a bucket list trip. The more we prioritize activities that feel nourishing, the better we feel about ourselves and the stronger our self-love grows. This can also include more mundane self-care habits, such as getting in 30 minutes of movement every day or eating a fruit with every meal. These types of lifestyle changes can improve our mood, health, and overall wellness.
4) Practice Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is a vital component of self-love. We tend to be overly critical of ourselves, specifically areas that we want to change. It is important to note that the way we treat ourselves has a direct impact on our self-esteem. Some of our inner critics tend to be quite loud. For example: Maybe we forgot to pick up a prescription on the drive home. Our inner critic might jump in and say “You’re such an Idiot.” This type of talk can really impact how we feel about ourselves. So next time you notice your inner critic getting a little too loud, try asking it these questions:
What evidence is there that the criticism is true? I forgot to get the prescription. What evidence is there that the criticism is not true? I graduated from college. I usually don’t forget things. My memory doesn’t necessarily have to do with my intelligence.
Is there an alternative explanation? Maybe I’m not an idiot, maybe I just took a different route home that didn’t pass the pharmacy.
If my best friend was in this situation and had this though, what would I tell them? It’s ok. We all forget things sometimes. It’s not a big deal.
Our inner bullies tend to make us feel worse about ourselves. But by challenging those critical thoughts and developing kinder responses to our flaws, we can improve our view of self. More self-compassion directly correlates to increase self-love.
Self-love is crucial in building overall mental wellness. It nurtures the most important relationship we will ever have: the one we have with ourselves. That is why it is so important to take time this February to practice not only romantic love, but self-love as well.
