How to love yourself more each day in 10 powerful ways.

Loving yourself is an idea that can be simple in theory but harder in practice. I used to think that loving myself was selfish.

I don’t know where this belief came from, but I do know that it often made me feel guilty for loving myself.

Now I love myself more than I ever did in the past because I was able to let go of the beliefs that I had about self-love and accept myself for who I really am.

I also learned some simple practices that helped me build love & acceptance for my true self every day.

If you want to learn how to love yourself, try any of the following 10 ways to practice and build self-love every day.

1. Change Your Beliefs About Self-Love.

Your core beliefs guide your thoughts, actions, behavior, and personality. We start learning them from a very early age, which is why core beliefs can be hard to change.

But if you want to learn how to love yourself more, you have to change your beliefs about it. You need to know that love is already a part of you and all you need to do is remove the layers that are hiding it.

Here’s how you change your beliefs about self-love:

Practice self-awareness. You start by allowing yourself to think and feel your thoughts and emotions.
Allow yourself to feel. Once you are aware of what you’re feeling, name it. It reduces the power of the emotion.
Let your thoughts flow. You can do this while practicing mindfulness meditation. It will help you separate your thoughts from your emotions.
Release your old beliefs. Once you gain understanding and acceptance of your beliefs, you are ready to let them go and create new beliefs about self-love.

2. Feel Your Emotions.

Allowing yourself to feel your emotions, especially the “bad” ones, is a way of validating them. I used to think that if I felt my bad emotions, it made me a bad person.

I thought that if I could replace my bad emotions with good ones, I would be a good person and then I could accept myself for who I really am.

Letting yourself feel your emotions is hard, but it’s the only way to gain true self-acceptance, understanding, and self-love.

3. Accept Yourself Where You Are Right Now.

For the longest time thought that I had to look & act a certain way to be accepted by others so I could accept myself for who I really was.

I thought that if I could mold myself into how I thought others would like me, then they couldn’t help but love me.

Guess what, that day never came. In fact, I think it was off putting to other people and true self-love never came.

This is why self-acceptance is important when it comes to loving yourself more.

You don’t have to wait until you have the perfect body, face, partner, job, friends, personality, or salary to love yourself. If you did, you will wait a long time.

Accepting where you are in life right now is one of the first stepping stones to loving yourself.

4. Live In The Present Moment.

Living in the present moment makes us aware of our emotions, behavior, thoughts, and how we interact with the world.

Awareness is an act of self-love because it allows us to be present with ourselves and cultivate kindness, compassion, and love.

Mindfulness meditation is one way to practice self-awareness and living in the present moment.

You don’t have to sit quietly & meditate for hours to practice mindfulness meditation.

You can practice while you’re doing your chores, walking (one of my personal favorites!), eating, or even driving.

5. Get To Know Your True Self.

Knowing who you truly are is a self-love practice because you learn about the way you think, what you like or don’t like, and everything else that makes you, you.

If you want to know your true self, you can answer the following questions:

What do I love?
What is my dream job?
Where do I like to spend my time?
If I had no limitations, what would I do?
What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
Who do I admire and why?
Where do I see myself in a year?
What would stop me from getting what I want in life?

Taking the time to get to know your true self opens the way to genuine self-love.

6. Stop Comparing Yourself To Others.

People have a natural tendency to compare themselves to others. This is something I do myself.

Comparing yourself to someone else will only make you feel bad, so it makes sense to stop playing the comparison game, but it is easier said than done.

One way to stop the comparison game is to unplug from your electronic devices so you can stay away from social media and any platform that will make you compare yourself to other people.

You can do this for a few hours, or however long you need, to break away from all the judgement and criticism. I like to do this once a week for 24 hours as a way to reconnect with myself and recharge my energy.

7. Do Shadow Work.

Shadow work is facing the hidden parts of yourself so you can start healing. It’s a simple idea but it can be very hard to do because it often involves facing repressed thoughts and emotions.

The reward is huge however because once you allow yourself to face your subconscious, you will gain acceptance & understanding for who you really are.

It’s only when you have acknowledge, accepted, and understood your true self that you can truly love yourself for who you are.

8. Embrace Imperfection.

It seems like perfection is the standard anywhere you look, like the products we buy, movies we watch, and social media accounts we follow.

Therefore, these standards make it hard to practice self-love because it tells us that we need to be perfect to even be accepted.

Perfection can hold you back if you’re afraid of making mistakes or looking bad. It can keep you from going after what you want in life, even from truly loving yourself.

This is why embracing your perfections is a great way to practice self-love because it allows you to accept yourself for who you are, flaws and all.

One way to embrace your imperfections is to define your core values and core beliefs because they keep you anchored to the things that are most important to you in life.

Here are examples of core values and core beliefs:

Creativity
Love
Peace
Human life
Safety
I am smart.
I am capable.

9. Boost Your Confidence.

I used to think that positive affirmations were the best way to boost my self-confidence. They actually made me feel worse because the feelings were temporary, they masked the “bad” feelings underneath, and they didn’t boost my self-confidence.

I found that the best way to boost my self-confidence is through awareness, acceptance, and creating small, meaningful goals.

Awareness of your thoughts and feelings helps validate them and leads to self-acceptance. Creating small, meaningful goals helps to validate your actions and thus boost your self-confidence.

When you take these actions to boost your confidence, you practice genuine love for yourself.

10. Embrace Joy.

Joy is an emotion that uplifts you and makes you feel good. People who embrace joy are happier and more satisfied with their lives.

Embracing and expressing joy has been relegated to acting childlike or even strange. We’re actually most afraid of this emotion because it’s fleeting and it often evades us.

It’s a great way to practice self-love because it feels good and reinforces the things that you genuinely care about and are important to you.

To embrace joy, create a list of things that make you feel joyful. Once you write them down, all you need to do is practice them!

Last Thoughts On Loving Yourself.

Learning how to love yourself can be hard sometimes, especially if you believe that you don’t deserve it. This is why it can take some time before you can truly love yourself for who you are.

The good thing is, there are simple ways to love yourself, like changing your beliefs about love, knowing your true self, being in the present moment, and embracing all of yourself, including your imperfections.

Practicing self-love each day, even in small amounts, will help you love yourself more over time.

I hope you found these self-love tips helpful! When was the last time you practiced self-love? Please share in the comments below!