Do you ever wonder what would happen if you were to treat yourself like someone you love? If you surrounded yourself with people who actually care about you and you stop putting yourself down?
Oftentimes, we make the basic mistake of putting others above ourselves. We give them everything we have, our last ounces of love, and we forget to love ourselves.
But, what if we turned the tables around and start treating ourselves like someone we love? Isn’t it so obvious that your whole life would completely change if you just modified that one thing and start loving yourself?
Most of us forget what it means to be nice to ourselves. Instead, we choose to make our lives a living hell. In the end, we become our greatest enemy. That’s especially true if we fail to achieve our dreams or goals.
The moment you wake up, you start to emphasize your insecurities and drown yourself in self-deprecation and self-pity. But what would happen if you start cheering yourself up and being your own best friend?
I understand that everyone is facing their own problems, but there are so many things we should be thankful for.
You have put a lot of time and effort into getting to where you are right now, so why do you ignore your success? Apparently, it’s much easier to put yourself down than to give yourself a pat on the back and say that you’re doing great.
So, why do you do that? Is it because your loved one told you that you aren’t worthy of something? Or is it because someone else’s words had a profound impact on you?
Why you don’t treat yourself like someone you love
The way you treat yourself will greatly influence the way others see you. If you choose to be grumpy and negative every day, then those around you will tell you how awful and pessimistic you really are.
But why does this keep happening? There must be a logical explanation as to why you’re bullying yourself constantly. By making your life harder than it actually is, you’re being your own worst enemy.
So you’re here now, wondering why this is happening to you. In this article, I’ll list a couple of reasons that may help you open your eyes and change the way you think about yourself.
1. You think you’re unworthy of love
Perhaps the reason you don’t treat yourself like someone you love is that you aren’t aware of your value. You’re so used to treating yourself badly that you fail to see how much you’re even worth.
You keep going against yourself repeatedly, telling yourself how undeserving you are.
And look at you now. You’ve come to the point where you don’t think that you can achieve anything. All those motivational quotes hold zero meaning for you.
And even if someone gives you a proper compliment, such as “You’re great at your job” or “You’re so kind to others,” you don’t know how to react to it.
It comes as a surprise to you that others see you as an amazing person. Self-love is a word that’s unfamiliar to you. And no matter how many podcasts or inspirational quotes you see or hear, you can’t accept that there’s anything good in you.
What happens next is that you don’t treat yourself like someone you love, seeing as you can’t realize the goodness in you. It’s difficult for you to believe that you deserve to be treated the same way you treat others.
2. You think you’re wasting your time on insignificant things
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s rather tough to take a step back and appreciate things for a moment. It always seems as if we don’t have enough time for those things that are important to us and we wish that a day has more hours.
But in actual fact, all we lack is self-care. It’s something each of us has to implement in our daily lives in order to keep our sanity.
I know that this feels more like a burden to you and that you think you don’t need it in life, but you’re wrong.
Why would you even bother taking care of yourself when there are a dozen other things that are more important or urgent? And because of that very fact, self-care becomes just another activity that wastes your precious time.
In this consumerist society, everything seems to be more significant than your mental health. All those work projects and other people’s feelings become priorities and you start to neglect your own needs.
But if you don’t take a deep breath and find time for yourself, you’ll never learn to treat yourself like someone you love. If you haven’t given yourself enough love, others won’t feel obligated to behave toward you any better than they’re used to.
3. You’ve had a bad life experience
It’s definitely a challenge to love yourself when you can’t trust others. Perhaps people have used you for their own selfish reasons and now you don’t know how to love yourself again.
Maybe there was a time in your life when you were deprived of love or someone was critical and abusive toward you.
Even though we don’t like to admit it, someone’s words can have a profound impact on us.
It doesn’t just shatter your trust in people, it also prevents you from showing your true face in front of others. Other people’s opinions have caused you to struggle against yourself, so you hide behind a mask and hope that no one hurts you again.
Learning to love yourself is an internal battle that everyone needs to fight. You can’t surrender your mind to those negative thoughts and believe that you’re not worthy of being loved.
Change the way you think about yourself by cultivating love and tuning out the bad voices inside your mind. Don’t be too harsh on yourself if someone doesn’t give you the amount of attention you expected to receive from them.
Move on and quit being so self-critical.
4. You believe that being nice to yourself means you’re selfish
It’s wrong to think that treating yourself like someone you love means that you’re being selfish. That’s not true. It only means that you appreciate yourself enough to look after your well-being and sanity.
All of this time, you’ve been thinking that taking care of yourself means that you won’t have time to take care of someone else. You assume that focusing on your own feelings and self-improvement makes you self-centered and that others will think you’re narcissistic.
Changing this perception of yourself is one of the first steps you have to take when trying to learn to treat yourself like a person you love. There’s absolutely no reason not to celebrate your successes and be proud of yourself.
When you reach a certain goal, you need to believe that you deserve it. No wonder all those motivational speakers repeat the same thing over and over again: You can do it!
5. Who you are doesn’t match your ideal self
We all have an image of ourselves in mind and what we strive to become one day. And that self-image consists of various things such as physical appearance, personal traits, and so on.
When a person’s real experience and ideal self align, there is a state of peace and harmony.
But the greater the inconsistency is between those two things, the less we value ourselves. Thus, we give ourselves a hard time because we believe we can’t reach our full potential.
The thing to remember is that everything is always changing – and that includes you. You evolve, even when you don’t want to. You adapt to certain situations, so that’s why you need to give yourself a break.
9 ways to treat yourself like someone you love
Always putting yourself down can get you stuck in hopelessness where you think that self-love is impossible. Even if you try to incorporate new habits into your life, it usually doesn’t go the way you planned and you end up being your old self again.
It seems almost impossible to change your mindset and as a result, you live in denial that you’re nothing special. Deep down, you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t have a purpose in life and you don’t deserve anything good. Even when you work your hardest to achieve something, you’re incapable of praising yourself.
But to lead a happy and successful life, you must make a change and it starts now. You want to grow as a person and you want others to accept you for who you really are.
So, here are a couple of tips if you’re trying to treat yourself like someone you love. Keep in mind that saying these things won’t bring you any closer to your goal. You have to get up and make it happen.
1. Remind yourself how strong you are
Your first step toward treating yourself like someone you love is to remind yourself of your strength. Usually, when we fail at something, we only focus on our weaknesses and put ourselves down.
But you have to stop sabotaging yourself because you’re better than that.
Don’t think that you have no strong suits and that you can’t bring anything good to the table. We all have something we can be proud of. Certainly, there are things that you can do better than others, but sometimes you have to dig deep to find out your strengths.
Perhaps you’re an amazing musician who can make a rhythm out of anything. Maybe your friend is great at painting and can create a picture from memory.
The point is none of us are the same. We all have something that makes us stand out from the rest.
And even if your close friend tells you that she’s not good at something, you need to remind her to never give up. Emphasize the things she does amazingly and you’ll see how quickly she pulls herself up.
On the other hand, whenever you fail at something, you let your mind be preoccupied with negative thoughts. Instead of cheering yourself up and focusing on your strengths, you keep telling yourself you have none.
Can’t you see the mistake you’re making? Do you understand that you’re treating others better than you treat yourself?
You’re an amazing person who has so much to offer the world. Just because you’re having one bad day doesn’t mean your entire life is awful. Remind yourself how strong you are and things will start to look up.
2. Appreciate yourself more
You’re probably telling yourself that you can’t have that man because he’s out of your league, or that you can’t land that dream job because you’re not smart enough.
You simply don’t appreciate yourself as a person and are convinced that you don’t have much to offer. The only thing you keep telling yourself is that others are better than you.
However, things have to be different if you want to learn to treat yourself like someone you love. Your goal has to be to appreciate yourself more.
You have to replace those awful words with ones of self-belief: I’m going to work harder on achieving my dreams. I’m worthy of experiencing real love. I’m able to attract any guy I want.
These are the words that need to resonate in your mind instead of those that make you question your value.
Appreciate yourself more. Because guess what – no one will do it for you. Putting yourself down all the time will show others that you’re not worthy of their time or energy.
It’s time to rise from the ashes and turn a new page in life. This is your first step toward achieving your full potential and living the life you deserve to lead.
3. Listen to yourself
As I mentioned earlier, you need to back up your words with actions. Instead of just saying appreciative and affirming words to yourself more, you have to listen to yourself as well.
It’s easy to lose yourself when you’re dealing with many things at once. Perhaps your loved one recently left you or you have family problems.
In that case, you have to allow yourself to speak your mind. Don’t hold anything back.
Bottling up all those emotions instead of confronting them will affect your well-being. You’re allowed to be sad sometimes, but you need to listen carefully to what your body is telling you.
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t complete a task on time. Give yourself a break and do whatever it is that makes you happy. Sometimes, taking a step back can help you to see things from another perspective that you may have missed in all that mess.
On top of that, you have to listen and reflect on your needs. By neglecting them, you’ll feel empty and unsatisfied.
If you’re wanting to treat yourself like someone you love, then stop listening to what others think of you. You’re the only one who needs to realize her own value.
4. Be proud of your successes
Most of the time we celebrate the successes of those who are closest to us but forget about the ones we achieved. We turn a blind eye to our accomplishments because we think anyone could have reached them.
But ask yourself is this: How do you want to live the rest of your life? Do you really want to compare yourself to others all the time?
You deserve to treat yourself like a person you like and love. If you’re proud of someone else’s success, then it’s only fair to give yourself the same treatment.
Even if you reached a tiny goal that you’ve set, then reward yourself for all the hard work you’ve put into it. All those small steps will take you to your bigger end goal.
Take a day off, buy yourself something nice, or give yourself a word of acknowledgment.
Whatever you do, be sure that you’re feeling happy and satisfied. Who cares that someone else was capable of doing the same thing, you’re still allowed to be proud of yourself!
5. Remind yourself that no one’s perfect
What’s the first thing you say to your friend when you hear her bringing herself down and saying how she made an awful mistake? Admit it, you tell her that she shouldn’t be so hard on herself and that everyone makes mistakes.
But why don’t you apply that same approach to yourself? Why don’t you treat yourself the same way you treat your friend? After all, nobody’s flawless and you shouldn’t expect that you’re perfect either.
You can invest all of your energy into it, but even when you give everything you got, chances are that something will go wrong anyway. But that doesn’t mean you’re bad or inferior in any way, so don’t be hard on yourself.
Practice positive self-affirmations – in that way, you’re treating yourself like someone you love.
You’re in control of your life and it doesn’t matter if you don’t achieve something. As long as you feel good about yourself, everything will be okay.
6. Your weaknesses don’t define who you are
Yes, you may be terrible at something, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your dreams. Believe it or not, everyone has some weaknesses.
But they don’t have to define who you are as a person. It’s healthy that you admit you have them, but they shouldn’t stop you from becoming a superwoman.
Being aware of your weaknesses means that you know what you should work on. As previously mentioned, no one’s perfect, and there are always things that you can improve about yourself.
Just stop putting yourself down and realize that you have to embrace your weakness in order to live a healthy life.
People won’t judge you just because you’re not good at something. They won’t even notice your shortcomings because they’re mostly busy thinking about themselves.
Change your mindset to the fact that your imperfections make you unique.
7. You are your own best friend
Even on days when you feel like everyone’s abandoned you, there’s one person who’ll always be there: yourself. You need to love yourself and give yourself the same treatment you afford others – that’s the only right path to success.
Sometimes you will feel hopeless and won’t be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In those moments, you need to pick yourself up by giving yourself a hand.
Don’t just wait for someone to come to you and help you. Instead, help yourself by being your own best friend.
The worst mistake you can make is to bring yourself down by focusing on your flaws and weaknesses. Do what’s best for you and give yourself a nice pep talk.
Once you do that, you’ll see how strong you actually are and why you should never underestimate yourself.
8. Forgive yourself and others
No matter what happened yesterday, the only thing that matters is today and tomorrow. Don’t allow yourself to bear resentment toward anyone because hatred can destroy you.
It’s unfortunately normal for people to hurt us, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s bad. Learn to forgive them and back off if you see that someone is being toxic toward you.
Then apply the same thing to yourself. If you’re unhappy with a decision you made, don’t blame yourself forever for it.
Forgiving yourself is one of the hardest things to do, but that’s something you need to learn if you want to create a life you love.
9. Fall in love with yourself
Despite all of your flaws and quirks, your only goal should be to love every single part of yourself. You deserve to wake up and feel good about yourself and be comfortable in your own skin.
You are your biggest supporter, so don’t be shy to shower yourself with compliments. You control your emotions and you decide whether or not you’ll treat yourself like someone you love.
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