Self-love 🤍

A valentines day special to help you have a #healthyrelationship with yourself, the most important #relationship you could have! #self-love #love #happiness # self-esteem #confidence.

Have a healthy relationship with yourself, so you can make #healthyrelationships with others.

Before you start making any kind of changes in life, first, I strongly believe you have to know why you’re doing it, otherwise what’s the point? You wouldn’t play a game with no knowledge or rules, would you? So don’t do something, if you don’t know why it’s benefiting you.

Self-love; Love of self. Basic human necessity. How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.

The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you can have.

No matter how many relationships you may have or have had in your life, whether that be partners, friends, family or associates. The only one that will be with you forever is your own.

The only one person, you can ever really trust 100% is yourself, the only one person you 100% truly know is yourself and that’s a fact that will never change.

The relationship you have with yourself is the relationship you allow others to have with you…

As I always say, everything starts with you, everything in your life, including your relationships starts with you.

So how you treat & portray yourself is how others will see you and treat you.

If you have an unhealthy relationship with yourself, chances are you will project that onto any other relationship you find yourself in.

That’s going to cause problems!

Of course, it’s not always your own relationships problem, you may have some past relationship trauma that caused issues in later relationships for you but again, if that's the case and you do have trauma – it’s your responsibility to deal with that & start a new healthier relationship with yourself for you to be able to move on and start healthy relationships with others.

Example – if you’re someone who constantly compares yourselves to others, you might be in a relationship with a loved one, a friend, a family and so on and see them laughing and joking with someone who you believe to be ‘better’ than you. Your reaction would probably immediately be jealousy and 9 times out 10 you’ll be wrong, that person may be equally as funny, as confident, as pretty, as cool as you but because you have low self-love, you have low self confidence and low self-esteem. When that jealousy feeling hits you, you’re going to project that onto the person you’re in a relationship – that’s going to cause arguments, they’re going to tell you, you’re wrong. You’re going to question yourself, anxiety will kick in. You may even loose this relationship if this is a regular occurrence – you see where I’m going with this?

Whatever is inside of us, will come out and it will project onto others, it will affect all area’s of our lives all because we didn’t have a healthy relationship with ourselves.

Equally, that example could have been wrong, in some very small cases, we can meet toxic people that manipulate us, try make us feel small, jealous, worried, but if we have a healthy relationship with ourselves and practise self-love – we would be more resilient to a toxic situation like that and we wouldn’t let it happen for much longer – because when you know better… you do better!

In my opinion self-development should be simple, I’m not a counsellor, a therapist or a psychologist, I am a wellbeing mentor with life coaching skills.

I am straight talking, straight to the point and more to the point, I have lived- through experience of everything I teach.

This valentines I want you to enjoy every second with the people you love, who love you back, but I also want you to be aware that if for some horrible reason those people were gone that you need to have self-love and a healthy relationship with yourself to ensure you can look after yourself.

So here’s my top ten simple yet effective steps to self-love…

1. Stop comparing yourself to others.

Your unique! Nobody can ever take that away from you. Focus on what you already have, be grateful for it and embrace it. I personally think everybody’s best trait is their uniqueness. There’s no point in comparing yourself to others, simply because you are you, you cannot be anybody else and nobody can ever be you! There will always be somebody above you, but there’s always somebody below you too (which isn’t cool!). Focus on yourself that much that you literally have no energy to focus on anybody else!

2. Stop worrying about others opinions and expectations.

Don’t worry about what society thinks or expects of you. There is no time limit on when you should achieve or do anything! You can’t make everybody happy, so it’s a waste of time and energy trying to! Be proud & happy of yourself and your journey! If you dig deep, I'm sure you have done some amazing things! You’re the only person you have your whole life, so as long as you’re happy with what you’re doing – that’s all that counts. People pleasing is a negative habit, that we tend to grow up into, but negative habits have negative effects – people pleasing often makes us stop pleasing ourselves resulting in unhappiness, anxiety, depression etc.

3. Allow yourself to make mistakes.

Nobody’s perfect! I bet you hear yourself saying that a lot to the people you love and care for – so say it to yourself! Cut yourself some slack! Learn and grow from your mistakes. Dwelling on them will only make you feel negative, doubt yourself, decrease your self-esteem. Find solutions rather than problems & try avoid making the same mistake twice by taking responsibility.

4. Face your fears.

Feeling afraid is a natural human response. Don’t avoid your fears, instead confront them! Try to understand your fears, why you feel them, then deicide what you’re going to do about them. You don’t have to do it overnight but start small and watch amazing things happen. Confronting your fears boosts confidence, self-belief, hope, happiness, growth, not to mention reduces anxiety, stress and isolation. Do not live in fear – you never know, that thing you’ve been avoiding in fear could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you!

5. Trust yourself.

That inner voice, that strong feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you hear that inner voice – that’s your gut instinct! And it’s usually right! Trust yourself to make choices, decisions & decide what’s best for you. We often doubt ourselves, don’t believe in ourselves & as a result leave ourselves in some bad places, missing on what could have been amazing, all because we didn’t trust our gut! You know yourself better than anyone, so if it feels right, have a word with yourself, believe in yourself, tell yourself you can and go for it! Don't let anybody else tell you what to do, make your decisions for you or live your life - you do it, your way! Even if it’s a mistake, at least you tried & you can learn and grow from it!

6. Remove negative toxic people from your life.

We cannot control other people’s actions and behaviour but we can control how we react to it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be alone than unhappy! Whether it be partners, friends, family, colleagues or associates, if there’s people consistently bringing negativity or toxicity into your life, then remove them before they drag you down. The process may be painful at first, but in the long run, you’ll thank your happy self for it.

7. Put yourself first.

Sometimes we spend a lot of our time caring or loving others a little more than ourselves. As result, we forget to have that same love, care and attention for ourselves & put our mental health and wellbeing at risk.

SELFCARE is important, I’m not saying don’t love or care for others but don’t forget to save some much needed energy for yourself in the process. Do more things that make you happy and bring you joy, learn to say no when you don’t want to do something, self-care is simple – it’s ‘taking care of yourself’ & it’s important because if you don’t, who will? The smallest things can bring you joy! So take good care of yourself at least once a day, it could be as simple as a walk, going to the gym, bathing, reading, eating… the list goes on! Take good care of yourself - that'll encourage people to take good care of you too! Why would somebody want to take care of someone who doesn't care about themselves?

8. Respect yourself.

Don’t be afraid of speaking your mind and voicing your opinions when you don’t agree with something & especially when you feel under appreciated, disrespected & so on. If someone upsets you, you don’t need to have an argument to tell them – you just need to have respect for yourself! Even if speaking up feels uncomfortable at the time – it’s something that gets easier the more you do and people will respect you more for it! How can you expect people to have respect for you, if you don’t respect yourself? Set boundaries for yourself & everything else around you & if those boundaries are crossed speak up! Even if somebody doesn’t agree with you at least you said you piece! Not only does it feel good to be respected back but it clears your mind, and that problem won’t eat you up, wishing you had have said something, this builds confidence, self-esteem, happiness and everything else in between!

9. Looks aren’t everything.

Sure! We all like to look good, but there will always be somebody prettier, stronger, taller, thinner. Social media influences our society into thinking that you can’t be successful, unless you don’t eat carbs, live off protein, pose in the gym and have a tanned, flat stomach and gleaming white teeth – BORING! A big misconception of what beautiful really is! Life is too short! Be balanced! Eat the bloody burger, drink your beer then try be a little heathier (not starve yourself) the next day. Have a fun, balanced life - it'll make you happier! It doesn’t matter if your teeth don’t glow in the dark – at least you have some! Don’t kill yourself in the gym, spend 1000s on Botox, plastic surgery & designer clothe unless YOU want to! If it doesn’t make you happy don’t do it just because 90% of Instagram does! Be unique, be original, wear what you want, look how you want & the right life for you, will surround your beautiful unique self. You could be the prettiest, most handsome, fittest person on this planet but still have the personality of a wet-wipe and diet of a rabbit 😊. Looks fade & no matter how much you try to change your appearance – it doesn’t really change who you really are!

10. Accept yourself.

Every single thing to date that has ever happened to you in your life has made you who you are today and no matter how much you love or hate that – you cannot change what has already happened! Instead accept yourself for who you are as well as all the things that have happened in your life, if you’re not 100% happy with it, you have the power to change, grow or keep working on all of that but only when you take responsibility and accept yourself! You cannot love what you don’t accept, you cannot change what you don’t accept. Your imperfections, your mistakes, your daily mood, your work, your friends, your family, your partner, your attitude, your thoughts, your feelings, emotions, anxieties, everything! None of that can progress unless you first accept it for what it is. Accepting the bad things in life, rather than ignoring them, allows us to deal with them and make the most of them. But, by ignoring them, stores all your problems causing damage to your mental health and wellbeing. You cannot escape from yourself, you are who you, so embrace it! Be kind to yourself, make the most out of your life, you’re only here once, so love you, so you can love your life!