How to love yourself: 10 steps

Be Happy: I’m sure you have been told many times to be happy but you keep on wondering what it means and how to achieve that.

Being happy means not allowing things to bother you. The question is how? Okay, for instance you are extremely fat or slim and because of this you are being laughed at by people. Paying attention to this would make you want to change your stature. If you fail at that, you find yourself sad or depressed about this.

To be happy, you have to take a new stand and opinion about yourself. You don’t have to be loved by everyone. To be fit does not mean you should either be skinny or fat. People love to talk and paying attention to all those talks prevent you from listening to yourself. You may end up being unhappy and unfulfilled. Changing your mind set about who you are is a great start to be happy.

Knowing Your self-worth:
Self-worth, is normally based on the love you have for yourself on what people say about you and how they relate to you.

What does it mean? Let me site an example; When people don’t like you or when they withdrew themselves from you, the feeling of sadness is what you feel. You begin to ask questions and feel angry about the situation. This is because, you are basing your self-worth on the external force not internal.

You should tell yourself, “my love for myself cannot be based on what other people say about me”. I know there can be ups and downs but how you relate and come out of it every time tells how much you know your worth.

Create a Relationship with Yourself: How do you know you love yourself without knowing who you are. Ask yourself questions like, who am I? What do I Like? What do I dislike?

Most of the time we base the answers of these questions on other people because of what they say about us. You can’t say you love someone without knowing them. The same way you can’t say you love yourself without knowing yourself.

How do you create a relationship with yourself? Spend time with yourself by either meditating or journaling. You can also talk to yourself and record. Use whichever works for you. You can’t say you don’t have time to journal or meditate. We have 24 hours in a day, calculate including the number of hours you sleep. You would then realize you are not utilizing the time you have.

Trust in your own Ability: Everyone has an ability within, all you have to do is trust in that ability.

You cannot be lazing around and not start figuring what you are good at and complain. Spend time to figure out what you are good at and understand those qualities of yours.

And when you know of your ability, you should not procrastinate.

Do not Pretend: When you feel like crying and you are in public, you should. Why do you laugh in public and cry in private?

You laugh whenever you want to and its fine. The same way you can cry wherever and whenever you want to and that is also fine. You crying does not mean you sad. Looking at what people would say and ask when they see you crying should not prevent you from expressing yourself.

Do not Force yourself to like something you do not like. Express yourself the same way you do when you are with your family. Do not change yourself for the love of others. Although you must change if you have a bad habit.

Process the things the way they are: Accept thing the way they are, everything happens for a reason. An example: I love school and education but whenever something went wrong, I asked myself, Why Me? What did I do wrong? And all those questions.

I realized it was self-pity. So I had to change my perspective from such questions and rather ask, how can I grow from this situation which is challenging? You have to change your mind-set which blames God for everything bad that happens to you.

It’s not God or the universe trying to harm you in anyway. By processing things, the way, they are, you reflect back on the situation that broke you and you realize that it made you stronger. Those moments ruin your ego, self-esteem and others. I know it’s hard to snap out of it but you must try.

Don’t let fear control You: Growth is when you fail. Come out of your comfort zone and set ground rules for yourself. Find out what your fears are because they prevent you from loving yourself.

Is your fear what people would say about you when you tell them your honest opinion? Is it that you fear what would happen if you take a particular step or decision? Fear is mostly from what we have experienced in the past, or what we have heard of the possible future.

To prevent fear from consuming you, you first must find out what your fear is, how it started, what is causing that fear and why you have that fear. Be present and try out without thinking of your fear.

Live and Love every moment: Live and love every moment given to you. Before you know it, the precious time you think you have will slip away from you. Everything is uncertain and we choose how we feel.

It’s our choice to either be happy or sad. It’s our choice to wallow in pain and listen to sad music. We choose where to go to and the people we talk to in day. It’s not about waiting for that degree or business deal to make us happy. It’s about making the most out everything we have now.

We should ask ourselves this question when we wake up every morning; if this was the last day I had on earth what would I do? And in the evening we ask, if I am to die tonight, Did I live a fulfilling life? Death is inevitable and does not know age. Be grateful for every day you have and live and love it.

Embrace your mistakes: We are all bound to make mistakes. No one is perfect. It’s okay to make mistakes as it helps us grow. Be honest and fast to admit your mistakes since that would help you learn from them.

Be happy when you make a mistake since it would serve as a new lesson to you in some time to come. It could be days, months or years.

Be prepared for what your actions and decision will bring: Decisions are made to yield results either good or bad. Before you make a decision you must know both the negative and positive aspect to it.

You should ask if you are making the decision for yourself or someone and how that decision would affect your life. Note that, we never make plans forever since the plans we make can change due to circumstances beyond our control.

Access the situation in an objective manner and draw out the conclusion excluding your personal biases.

Check out Friendship: How to relate with your friends in 5 steps. to learn how to relate with your friends.

These are the 10 steps on how to love yourself…
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