For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with my self-confidence. Reaching a state of self-love seemed like the most impossible thing in the world to me. How could I ever truly love myself when there were so many things I hated? Especially in the society we live in today, social media has painted the most unrealistic standards, making it extremely difficult for anyone to feel truly comfortable in their own skin. My battle with self-love has not been easy and I still have a lot of growth left to do, but I have grown a lot compared to when I first started. There is a common misconception that once you reach a certain point, you’re done growing. In reality, this journey to self-love is a life-long battle that requires hard work to maintain and improve every day. Although everyone’s path will look different, to help you get started, I’ve outlined a few things I kept in mind on my quest for self-love to help you get started:
Choices
Self-love is a complicated idea to understand and achieve. But it all starts with a simple question: Are you happy with who you are? For me, the answer was no. So, the first step I took was making choices for myself. All my life I have put everyone else above myself and I let everyone walk all over me. If you truly want to love yourself, you need to make choices about what needs to change in your life (people, lifestyle, etc.) – only then can you truly start to grow.
Self-Care
Self-care is essential in any battle for self-love, and this can look different for everyone. You can practice mindfulness, meditation, journaling, or read self-help books. There is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself and taking a step back so that you can truly reflect on life and appreciate who you are and where your life is at.
Moving Away From Perfectionism
One of the biggest issues I’ve had in my self-love journey is my relationship with my body. We constantly see these unrealistic picture-perfect bodies when we scroll through social media, but who says that social media determines what a beautiful body looks like? Personally, to finally realize that I love my body, I had to move away from the idea of perfectionism. There is no such thing as the perfect body; perfection is subjective and definitive of your own standards. This all starts with the recognition that what you see on social media isn’t the definition of a perfect body.
The People You Surround Yourself With
I’ve found that I’ve always had trouble making true connections with others and being completely authentic to myself. This was due to the fact that I had no love for myself, and so I couldn’t truly be myself around others. Even if I had friends that put me down, I would never say anything because I never believed I was worth defending. I later realized that these toxic relationships were hindering my growth, so the right decision was to remove these people from my life and surround myself with those who genuinely cared about me. Surrounding yourself with good people is what allows you to build up your confidence to finally be comfortable enough to be yourself. The most important thing in life is to always be authentic and never change for anyone, otherwise you risk devaluing who you are.
My journey is far from over. I still work hard every day, but don’t let this discourage you. The hardest part is getting yourself to start because that means admitting to yourself that you are worth loving. There is no key to self-love and I can’t tell you that it’ll be easy because it won’t be. You will encounter many setbacks, but you just have to remember to forgive yourself for your mistakes and for loving yourself any less than you deserve. Take it from me – it may seem impossible at first, but it is possible. No matter what you think, you are worth loving. And it all starts with you.