Be Your Own Best Friend
How do you treat yourself in comparison to how you treat your friends or family?
No, it’s not a trick question.
Do we encourage and support ourselves as much as we do others, or do we become far more critical when it concerns us?
Positivity can often be lost as soon as it concerns personal situations or circumstances.
Solitude
For reflecting, relaxing or focussing on certain projects it goes a long way to spend time by yourself and subsequently enjoying your own company. On a personal note, it allows me to connect with and understand myself, enabling me to have more fun when socialising. Being comfortable spending time on your own builds a platform for boosting self-confidence, becoming more positive and moving forward with any aspects of life be it work, sports, personal projects or even friendships.
Whether you’re extroverted or introverted it helps to try to deal with certain adversities on your own, it allows you to identify thoughts and coping processes, whilst setting you up to help others when needed. Focussing on others happiness often goes a long way in providing us with our own but it can be all to easy to lose track of working on ourselves. All kinds of relationships can flourish when as individuals, we establish who we want to be and what our values are. As much as it’s warming knowing others are there for us, ensure you are always there for yourself as much as you are for other people.
We’re regularly facing pressures of money, career prospects, approval or perhaps more internal challenges such as anxieties. All providing us with different issues based on our experiences and how we try to deal with them. The simplest of coping tactics can be to try and ride out challenges or to ignore them, having our heads in our phone and losing track of our own lives or even always placing ourselves in social situations to be in the company of others. There are reasons for this and whilst I don’t believe it’s the most proactive approach it does work for some people. However, it doesn’t always tackle the issue, riding the wave takes you so far until the next one arises and repeats.
Based on my experiences I enjoy searching for solutions before sharing problems with others and seeking external advice. Such an approach creates a better understanding and trust within me, creating a solid, positive internal support network for many situations. It can be extremely challenging understanding situations if you don’t seek answers within either before, or alongside talking to others.
Whichever way you look at it, we as people spend a lot of time on our own with our thoughts, yet if this time is often spent submerged in other activates, we perhaps overlook things we need to address. It creates a system of burying things, yet by being there for yourself and putting yourself first above all else when it matters, you can overcome a lot. Be proactively selfish with your time and needs, don’t push people away but always be aware of how you’re feeling and make that the decisive aspect of decision making. If you want to spend time alone do so. If you need to keep busy to help you get through something then be busy. The key is to not feel guilty about it and enjoy what you’re doing.
In any relationship, you may be called upon to sit and listen, try and lift someone’s spirit or simply provide company. By nature, we’d rarely refuse when someone asks us to help them, which is why it’s equally paramount we identify when to do this for ourselves. Remaining upbeat and positive in either scenario. Being there for yourself can establish a strong foundation for you to be there for others to the best of your ability.
Help yourself
It’s always benefited me having go-to tasks when I need to support myself, and everyone’s different so it’s worth collecting different ideas and creating your own list of positive activities. These are a few things I would like to recommend:
- Journaling: Ideas, thought maps, goals, note-taking, daily tasks, quotes and affirmations.
- Exercising: Running, walking, weightlifting.
- Listening to music or a podcast.
- Mindfulness: Headspace or any other meditation app etc.
- Reading: novels, educational or self-development books.
You may or may not already do some or all of the activities. They all benefit me greatly in grounding myself and getting ready to take on the next task at hand. Furthermore, reconnecting and recharging myself in a proactive and positive way. All can be done regardless of time, it’s important to make time for such activities, the same as you would make time to appease others. So give it a go…
‘We’ve got to love ourselves before we can love anybody else’ — Benjamin Francis Leftwich (The Mess We Make)
The same applies to your happiness.
You cannot be responsible for anyone else’s happiness, and thus cannot rely on others to make you happy. In contrast, you are absolutely in control of your own happiness and how you view certain situations, so long as you take responsibility for it. Once this is realised and accepted it becomes a lot easier to focus on yourself and change who you are and how you treat and work with yourself. Ultimately bettering all relationships in your life.
