“Self-love” is probably not what you think it is
But before we begin… this is an opinion piece. It’s just that this perspective has changed my life the most out of anything due to its foundational nature, and taken years to develop.
Anyway, who am I and why does my opinion matter? 🤷🏻♂️…
The backstory: A lack of self-love
I’m an entrepreneur (here’s my biz), I’m 30, I’ve made many mistakes, and made good progress more recently. It’s taken a long time.
I’ve historically had a hard time maintaining romantic relationships, and 2–3 years ago I found myself in an abusive and toxic relationship. This ladies and gentlemen, was my “rock bottom”.
It changed my life. In short; I had unknowingly struggled with self-love and self-esteem throughout my adult life. That would come as a surprise to many who know me.
And before I dive in with my realisations and life lessons… this is really close to my heart, and I really believe all entrepreneurs should consider this as it’s very easy to compare yourself and feel worthless at times… if not all the time.
Symptom #1: Lack of boundaries 🙅🏻♂️
It wasn’t until I started exploring my lack of boundaries from the relationship that I realised it was rooted in self-esteem issues fundamentally.
I didn’t even realise I had difficulty with boundaries (specifically in interpersonal relationships). It took “rock bottom” to realise it, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
In fact… the biggest realisation was that it’s tied to self-love & self-worth. But I hate the term “self-love”. It’s cliché and cheesy and it’s frequently misused and misunderstood.
I bet more than 80% of people struggle with this topic, if not more..
“Self-love” is misused and often toxic at times
People used to say “love yourself” and it sounded so simple. I thought I understood it. I didn’t. I had this image of saying “I love you” to yourself in the mirror. Sure that’s one way of approaching it, not discrediting that.
However, often I see “self love” used as an excuse or justification for shitty habits and behaviour. For example, getting angry and over reacting, and then saying something like “that’s just the way I am”, and calling it “self-love” to accept that behaviour, to justify it. Nope.
In fact it’s kind of the opposite. Deep down you know when you’re not upholding your own values and word, by lying to yourself, I.e. disrespecting yourself. That leads to a deeper self loathing and continuation the cycle.
Symptom #2: Cockiness
Commonly we cover that up with cockiness, arrogance, and “I don’t care” attitudes. But that’s a defensive front and illusion for ourselves to cope and avoid truly dealing with the source.
What is “it” then, and how do you develop it?
Ok so here’s what I’ve learnt…
Self love is actually self respect and acceptance.
If you know yourself and your values, strengths, qualities and keep your word with yourself, you will inevitably like yourself and ultimately feel good about who you are without needing someone else to tell you how good you are.
This is where the work is required, you need to know yourself, and that requires being honest with yourself, both the good and bad. It takes work and time. And yes, it will hurt at times. But you hurt yourself more by not doing it.
It’s about knowing who the f*ck you are, and liking it, or changing if you don’t until you do like you. That’s the key. If you don’t like you, then you need to work on it, or learn to accept it, which also requires work, continuous work.
Self-love is a state of mind, a decision, an approach. It’s being certain about who you are. Its bi-product being your success, happiness and freedom.
One of the most powerful ways to develop self-worth is by continually bringing honour to your word. Every time you don’t keep your word, you will let the self criticism bucket fill up.
🔄 The cycle of self-love
You can end up stuck in a loop of self loathing, by not honouring your word, and then feeling worse about yourself, therefore doing it again and again. But the opposite is also true…
Self love = Liking who you are = Bringing honour to your word = Self love
You can choose to spiral up or down. It’s a decision you make every time you make a day to day or life decision. And like a muscle, it gets stronger each time.
With that said, we all make mistakes, we’re human, but that’s where developing strength comes in and learning from those mistakes. As long as you’re always trying to put more in the positive self image bucket.
Oh and if you want to eat the metaphorical cake, and “need” it this one time… then do it, but be honest with yourself and make that decision pro-actively without guilt or self loathing.
We ultimately have a choice about our lives and self-worth, and that is where self-love comes in. Love yourself enough to make the right choices that are going to make you feel good about yourself at the end of the day.
And what about weaknesses?
Understanding your weaknesses and accepting them allows you to overcome them and find workarounds. NO ONE is perfect and that’s perfectly ok. Perfectly imperfect. Go you! You’re doing great.
Being an actual work in progress is way better than not. In fact you can put that in the positive self image bucket under good qualities and strengths! And keep working at it, then guess what, you will like yourself more for it, for having a direction.
🕹 Taking back control of your self-worth
Fundamentally we all want to be good people, well most of us… but till we start taking responsibility for ourselves and evaluating ourselves, we leave our self-worth in the hands of the external world and people around us.
So now when someone puts you down, rejects you, or hurts you. You KNOW your truth and who you are, and you know you like who you are. So you don’t need anyone else’s approval because you respect yourself and don’t need external validation to feel like you’re a good and worthy person.
🧘🏻♂️ Inner peace
And all of this comes down to one thing: peace. If you feel at peace with yourself, then you will feel at peace with the reality you live in.
Now go on and love yo’self, by recognising as well as choosing, your great qualities and values, and then representing them!
Choose to love yourself, it takes practice, and execution like all areas of improvement in life. But it’s 100% worth the effort.
Wishing you inner peace, love and happiness.
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