Five things to do to increase your happiness and help you love yourself
People by nature are supposed to happy, fun-loving, and stress-free, but the way most people are brought up and conditioned from birth is not always conducive to this. We’re taught to speak, read, write, and make simple calculations along with a good measure of religious instruction, including certain socially acceptable morals or codes of conduct, but not self-love.
Learning a whole range of socially acceptable niceties like saying thank you and please is designed to make a person a caring, kind, and worthy human being, but much of this is superficial, were never taught the need or importance of loving ourselves.
Many consider someone who loves themselves is conceited or selfish, but really, how can you love another, if you don’t have a loving relationship with yourself first?
It’s expected and encouraged that we always place others first and accept our so-called lot in this world, by practicing self-denial, putting up with all kinds of discomfort, going without things we want as we self-sacrificing for others.
We’re encouraged to look up to picture-perfect celebrities and images of how a perfect world should be and what we should look like, but not to accept ourselves as we are.
It’s totally understandable and very natural, that every parent wants a better life than they had for their children. The pressure to succeed in everything is immense and often consumes most of our energy and time, leaving little room for loving ourselves.
Many religions have an underlying premise that you should always place others interests, well being, and happiness before your own. This is very noble and self-sacrificing, but in reality, it’s counterproductive and actually harmful. Sure, you should never do anything to harm, threaten or diminish anyone, whether you know them or not, but in order to really help and serve others, you must first look after yourself.
When on a plane or as a passenger on a ship, the safety instructions always state that it’s important to secure your own oxygen mask, life vest and safety gear before helping others even your children or the elderly. The reason for this is obvious, there is little real help you can give them if you perish or drown because you were helping others from an insecure position. Life in general is similar.
One of the things most people lack while growing up is a satisfactory feeling of self-worth or self-love; often people feel that they are inadequate or not good enough. Feel that they do not look good enough or that they cannot compete with others.
The importance of loving yourself
Respecting yourself, admiring your virtues and accepting your flaws or shortcomings and being able to say yes or no to things that matter to you, are vital aspects of loving yourself.
Always placing others and their needs before yours, and not considering your own needs, leads to anxiety, depression, bitterness, psychological and emotional pain and feelings of low self-esteem.
Not loving yourself makes it difficult to really enjoy life, the world and others. But it’s not easy to truly love yourself, in fact, it takes hard work.
These are five things to do to increase your happiness and help you to love yourself:
- Don’t Compare Yourself to others
A huge part of consumer marketing is devoted to making you compare yourself to others and to want what others have. You need to try and focus on the things you have and the things that are great about yourself and not comparing or competing with others.
Take the time to be by yourself and do something that’s fun and enjoyable, even if it’s something new and exciting that you have not tried before
- Focus on your own achievements
Most people dwell on things that have gone wrong for them, bad decisions or their failures. This is natural as it helps you avoid similar failures in the future, but you should only think about these occasionally. Instead, practice thinking about all the positive things that have or are happening in your life. Even small wins are important and help to build your confidence and self-esteem.
Always forgive yourself for past mistakes and move on thinking on the positive aspects.
List your positive traits, it’s very easy to forget all the positive and good things that have happened and just think of the bad or unpleasant.
Write down your achievements, good times and the nice things that have happened for you, doing this will help you to realise, just how wonderful you really are.
If you have trouble getting enough positive aspects for your list, ask your friends or family to help. Very soon with their input you will have a list of awesomeness that will help you realize why they love you and why you should love yourself
- Don’t Get Hung up on Looks
Defining yourself because of the way you look is very shallow, but very common. It’s often the way we judge others, appearance is important and you should try and keep yourself presentable, but it does not reflect the person within. When looking at yourself with negative thoughts, remind yourself that you are much more than what you see in the mirror?
- Try and View Yourself from Another’s Perspective
It’s easy to become caught in our own view of ourselves and forget that there are other views and opinions. When you find you’re feeling negative, step back and look at your situation from other people’s perspective. Take an objective look at yourself and even ask others how they view your situation. You will find that others value you and find you worth much more than you realize.
- Don’t Dwell on Things That are out of Your Control
When you acknowledge the things you have control over and accept them, then move on, it makes life much easier. If you find something outside your comfort zone take a critical look at it and either conquer it or dismiss it as being irrelevant to your happiness.
Loving yourself is a vital aspect of every person’s happiness, but happiness comes from within and starts with a person feeling comfortable within themselves, accepting themselves, their weaknesses and strengths faults, good points and bad, in short, loving one’s self.
