6 Ways to Practice Self-Love

How to Love Yourself, 6 Ways to Practice Self-Love

Love yourself. It’s a phrase that is easily said, but not easily done. Loving yourself goes hand and hand with almost everything I write. It means loving who you are, what you look like, and where you’re at in your life, unapologetically. Now, I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been frustrated about my body image or life progress. It’s not the thoughts that put us down, but the way we handle them. In this post, I’m going to share with you my tips on how to be proactive when life doesn’t go our way and how to move forward. Keep reading for my 6 ways to practice self-love. 

The term, “love yourself” is common, but more recently it inspired me after reading the book, You Are a Badass (linked below), by Jen Sincero. She ended almost every chapter of her book with, “love yourself”. I kept thinking, “Okay, we get it, self-love is important”. But she was right, and loving your self isn’t just important, it’s everything. What people need to realize is that the only person that can establish your self worth, is you. This whole idea of one person being better than another because they have more money, a bigger house, or are more attractive, is laughable. Guess what honey, when you head up to heaven, the Lord isn’t granting admission based on how many pairs of Prada shoes you own. Confidence, loving yourself, happiness – it all starts when we realize that no one can put a price tag on us or rate us from one to ten. The only one that can do those things, is you! So, tell yourself you’re priceless and give yourself a rating of a 100 when the highest score you could have gotten was a ten. When we believe in ourselves and our potential, we can go far. Below you can find my 6 ways to practice self-love, enjoy!

6 Ways to Practice Self-Love

Read A Little

Describing Jen’s book as a, “good read”, would be the understatement of the year. This is one of those books that could totally give you the kickstart you need to get your shit together and start your dream life. If you like someone that tells it the way it is and won’t sugar coat anything, Jen is your girl. She draws from past experiences, adds in her own advice, and throws in a few curse words along the way. This book has got your back when it comes to self-doubt and improving your life.

I not only recommend this book, but any self help book you might find intriguing. Books like these can be a catalyst for starting a better and more fulfilling life. I find myself at Barnes and Noble most weekends strolling the self-help isle and cookbook section. Try it out sometime and see what you can find.

        Jen’s book >>>>>>> You are a Badass

Keep Going

Something I witness a lot is when the road ahead gets a little bumpy, people give up. News flash: life wasn’t made to be to easy. Life will constantly be filled with challenges, and overcoming those challenges will give you an insight into your character. It shows that you came to play this game called life and nothing will stand in your way. As hard as life gets, and I can promise you it will get hard, we have no other choice but to move forward. So, stop being a little baby, wipe away the tears, and tell yourself you can accomplish ANYTHING. Because its true!

Write it Down

Journaling has become my new best friend. You can find me jotting down my thoughts almost everyday. It helps me to mentally prepare for the day ahead and clear my brain of all the thoughts I had from a long day. I especially find it useful when I have stressful events going on in my life and need somewhere to analyze my feelings. It’s basically my personal counselor that I don’t have to pay and yes, it works. Lately, what I have been doing is starting off by writing down my most recent feelings. This isn’t meant to be anything detailed. I usually just write down something such as stressed or happy. Then, under my feelings I write a small paragraph on what might be causing those feelings. Once I locate the exact events that might be causing me stress, I write them down on the next page labeled, “How I Choose to Be Proactive”.  I take each stressful event and describe how I’m going to tackle each challenge. This helps me to keep in touch with my feelings and decrease my stress level. It’s a great way to get ahead of your challenges and face them.

Honey, You Got to Work it

Lets talk about presentation. The way we present ourselves says a lot about who we are and what we think of ourselves. When you are dressed nicely or look put together, it shows people that you hold yourself to a high standard and value yourself. Now, do we have to be put together all the time? Ha, yeah right. We can, however, give the illusion we are.  Have you ever heard the phrase, “fake it until you make it”? It refers to presenting ourselves in a way that exudes confidence, even if we don’t’ have a clue what we’re doing. It means putting on a smile when you don’t feel like it, or taking an extra minute to put on mascara so the world doesn’t realize you only got four hours of sleep last night. I can’t tell you how many times a week I put dry shampoo in my hair. Is my hair clean? No, but it looks like it and isn’t that all that counts? If you don’t have to fake it, more power to ya! But to my ladies or gents that are faking it, power to you too! Faking it or not faking it, you just got to get out there and work what ya got!

Get Organized

Do you realize how much unnecessary stress you could save yourself if you got a little bit more organized? Having all our ducks in a row makes the day, week, month, year, and hell, even our whole life go so much smoother. This could be as simple as getting an agenda and writing down your plans for the week. I can speak from experience here. While I’m a very organized person, I’m not the most punctual. Okay, I might be the least punctual person you’ll ever meet. I can tell the difference in my mornings when I’m on time versus when I’m late. When I’m on time – I can enjoy my coffee, get my journaling done, and even fold a basket of laundry. When I’m late –  I’m shoving my hair into a bun and running out the door while still getting dressed. I’ll talk more about organization at some point on my blog, but for now, I just want you guys to realize how important it is.

The agenda I use and love is by Lily Pulitzer. It’s a little bit more expensive, but so worth it. It’s something I use everyday and I love the layout of this particular agenda.

“Treat Yo Self”

If you love yourself, then you must “treat yo self”. Can I get an Amen? This tip is so simple and so easy to follow, because who doesn’t like to spend time pampering themselves? Can I get “No one”, for 200. Set aside time for yourself and activities that make you stress less or happy. When we give back to our body and mind by giving it a little TLC, we feel like a whole new person. It revives us and makes us ready to tackle a new day and all it’s challenges. It’s just not sustainable to go, go, go, with little to no break. Take time to focus on you.

I hope you guys enjoyed my 6 ways to practice self-love, check out my other posts like, 5 Tips on How to Handle Stressful Situations.