A Little Bit Of Love
When was the last time you felt grateful for yourself?
If answering this question makes you feel uncomfortable, it means that you haven’t been giving yourself the love you truly deserve.
Maybe you just didn’t have enough time for that, or maybe you just didn’t feel like it. Regardless of the reason why you didn’t work to strengthening your relationship with yourself, it’s time to dedicate some time to give yourself love. And to help you with that here are 7 ways to cultivate a deep love for yourself. Have fun!
To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.
1. Develop Healthy Egoism
To be able to even start thinking about cultivating self-love you need to redirect your focus from others to yourself. However, we’re not talking here about developing cynical self-centredness and become a self-absorbed, egotistic and selfish individual who cares only about themselves and doesn’t consider others. Because that would be extremely toxic and extremely harmful to one’s wellbeing.
What I mean instead is, that you should make yourself your number one priority. Not your ONLY priority but your number one priority. That’s the main difference between healthy self-interest and selfishness that many people seem to ignore.
Healthy egoism starts with self-reflection, self-awareness, discovering your personal core values and identifying your own needs. When you discover what makes you happy, satisfied and fulfilled you will be able to create intimate relationships with others. And isn’t it what we all want?
2. Prioritize Your Self-Care Pillars
Most of us know that we should prioritize self-care but when it comes to practising it suddenly it turns out that we are way too busy. Our schedules are insanely overbooked with things that were due yesterday. Our brains are overloaded by an insane amount of information that it cannot even process.
We eat in a hurry because apparently, 20 minutes for a lunch break is long enough not only to chew your food properly but also to notice the smell and taste of the food. We constantly sacrifice our sleep to accomplish more work in a day. We talk through messaging because make a phone call or actually meet someone in person would be a waste of time and we don’t have any.
We are extremely stressed, anxious and overwhelmed with work, family responsibilities, financial challenges and that never-ending to-do list that was supposed to help us but instead it’s making us feel even worse. When someone asks us when was the last time we took a day for ourselves we are unable to answer.
So if you think that you are too busy to take a day off and indulge in self-care, it’s exactly what you should do. So stop making excuses and start taking good care of yourself. Make yourself feel loved by prioritizing your self-care pillars.
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3. Use Your Pain As A Cathalyst
Life spares no one. We are all fighting our inner battle. We all struggle. And believe it or not but most of us experience pretty much the same stuff during our lifetime. Sounds crazy but here are some life experiences that everyone ‘must-have’ like having a disease, losing someone we love, having a life-threatening experience, realizing that our lives are completely out of control or even experiencing heartbreak.
Do you want to know what’s connecting these things? The common denominator of difficult moments in life is pain. And you know why? Because life without struggle and pain would be an empty and completely meaningless existence with no possibility of growing and evolving as a person.
Pain is an emotion and like any other emotion, it brings valuable information that shouldn’t be ignored. Instead, you should investigate what this particular emotion is trying to tell you. What is the message hidden behind your pain? And more importantly what you can do to turn your pain into strength and your wounds into wisdom.
4. Keep Challenging Yourself
Life is more than survival. Life is a true adventure. An incredible journey of self-discovery. That’s why it so incredibly precious to explore yourself even in those moments when things do not go as expected. Every single day is your chance to expand your mindset, develop your skills, stretch your abilities and train your courage muscle. You can live a full rich life, but only if you willing to challenge yourself.
Stepping outside our comfort zone, trying new things, stretching your boundaries is exactly what you need to live a more interesting, exciting and fulfilling life. Of course, I am not talking here about exposing yourself to potentially dangerous situations because that would be irresponsible. What I mean is that you should take a calculated risk and challenge yourself daily.
Pushing your boundaries and making yourself uncomfortable is actually more beneficial than you think. Because if you learn to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable you will not only eliminate your fear of failure but also you will boost your courage. And courage is exactly what you need to turn your dreams into reality and create the life that you want to live.
5. Cultivate Mindfulness Practices
Return to the present moment through mindfulness rituals. Start by focusing on your breath. Breathe in and breathe out. Inhale the uniqueness of the present moment and exhale all the past worries and future uncertainties. Just be in the present moment. Just for a moment. Don’t judge, criticize or label it. Just breathe.
Take a small break from ruminating on the past and worrying about the future. Stop overthinking, over-analyzing things because it makes everything much more complicated than it ever needs to be.
Switch the default time zone on the present moment and accept the imperfection and uniqueness that comes within. Redirect your attention from distractions and time wasters to the very essence of the present moment. Use your five senses to explore what is around you.
Take a coffee (or tea) break and really taste that coffee with your five senses. Let yourself experience all that this cup of coffee has to offer. Be present. Be mindful. Create a sensory experience that you will never forget. „Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Mindfulness Practices You May Like To Try
- Try Guided Mindfulness Meditation (3 types of mindfulness meditations below)
- Use Positive Affirmations to boost your mental power, self-esteem, and self-worth (try “I AM” positive affirmations meditation)
- Write Gratitude Notes (Start a Gratitude Jar - Every day write down what you are grateful for and add these “Gratitude Notes” to your gratitude jar.)
- Connect With Nature - contact with nature is highly beneficial to our physical and mental health, it keeps us healthy, grounded and relaxed. So stop hiding in your home. Instead, get outside and connect with nature. Get some natural vitamin D from sunshine and boost your happy hormones.
- Reboot and mental reset daily
- Practice Niksen
- Detox your wellbeing
- Practice positive thinking
- Practice digital detox to eliminate distractions and time wasters
Guided Meditations - Guided meditations are highly beneficial for both mental and physical wellbeing. They are a powerful tool in building self-awareness, gaining a new perspective, reducing stress and anxiety, accepting your feeling and emotions without judging them, increasing creativity and motivation, connecting with your higher-self, establishing a healthy relationship with your self, creating a mind, body, and spirit balance
Breathing Exercises - Mindful breathing exercises have a variety of benefits. Since we can control and regulate our breath we can use a simple act of inhaling and exhaling as a powerful tool in reducing stress, anxiety or getting rid of negative emotions like anger or frustration. Focusing on your breath can also improve your attention, concentration, and self-awareness.
Body Scan Meditation - It’s a powerful component of mindfulness practice designed to develop self-awareness. In particular, it’s a way to get in touch with your body. A way to narrow your complete attention to the one part of the body to move to the other part right after that. Body scan meditation practice improves the ability to move the attention up or down to the body. It trains your mind to switch your focus from detail to the wider one.
6. Practice Balance
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
This famous quote of Albert Einstein illustrates perfectly that balance is not a permanent state, nor it is something that comes easily without effort. So if you though that you can manifest a perfect balance by thinking intensively about it, it’s probably not going to happen.
A much better option would be to take a proactive approach and create that balanced life you’ve been dreaming of. Because from where I stand, the best way to lead a well-balanced life is to create and maintain structure and routine that will help you to navigate effectively daily life (even or especially during tough times).
Balance is a habit that needs to be practised every single day till it becomes automatic. Fortunately, we are creatures of habit. We find comfort in regularity and repetition. That’s the reason why we feel safe, secure and comfortable following a healthy routine. And if you add some powerful rituals to spice up your daily routine you will be waking up feeling positive for the day. So think about those simple rituals that make you feel happy, peaceful and loved and make them part of your daily routine. It doesn’t have to be something complex. The key to success is always simplicity. If you need some inspiration here are so ideas you may like:
12 Steps To Create & Maintain Daily Structure
- Plan Your Days According to 3 x 8h rule (8h of work, 8h of productive “me time”, 8h of quality rest. A 3 x 8h rule it a great way to achieve work-life balance.
- Set 3 Daily Priorities (You can use the 20/80 Pareto Principle to set your priorities, eliminate your distractions and focus on personal and professional growth. 24 hours a day can be enough to get the most important things done if you eliminate distractions and time-wasters (in every area of your life).
- Set your Daily Intentions (Ask Yourself, how do you want to feel at the end of the day)
- Create an effective To-Do List
- Set 3 MITS - the most important tasks (get them knocked out in the early morning, as soon as you can when your mind is fresh)
- Set SMART Goals & Deadlines
- Break down your big goals or larger tasks into more realistically achievable and manageable steps and then set deadlines for any of them
- Design an Action Plan for Your Goals (a goal without a plan is just a WISH!)
- Use the Pareto Principle to track your success and optimize what really matters in your life (According to the Pareto Principle, 20% of your work produces 80% of the result. This means that if you manage to identify that 20% correctly you will spend more time doing the right things that will produce the greatest outcome.)
- Schedule Time To Relax - Remember that relaxation and quality rest is the key to success.
- Get Quality Sleep On A Regular Basis (Dedicate 7-8 hours a day for a quality rest)
- Create A Healthy Night Routine
7. Build Lasting Wealth
Building lasting wealth is not something we usually associate with self-love. However, the truth is money deeply affect every area of our lives. Which is why, when we struggle financially other areas of our life also suffer. We get angry easily because living with constant stress makes us unable to relax. We have trouble communicating with our loved ones because we feel like we failed.
Not to mention that constant worrying can have serious consequences on your physical health and mental wellbeing. Because how can you be healthy if you are under constant pressure to solve your financial problems. So as you can see, your financial situation has a direct impact on your life. That is why you should care about your personal finances.
The economic chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic forced us to rethink our financial decisions, which in itself is a good thing. Because there’s never too late to fix your finances and begin building wealth. It may be easier when times are peaceful, but the truth is people tend to perform better and think clearer when there’s a little bit of pressure. Otherwise, we become lazy.
So, if you have financial problems right now, don’t panic. There are many things you can do right now to improve your financial situation almost immediately. For instance, you can start reading books on personal finances to change your money mindset. Another great idea is to develop good money habits that will help you to save money in a short amount of time. And then you can start investing some of your saved money to grow your wealth. And to help you with that I’ve created an eBook titled “A Simple plan for your financial independence” and financial planner kit that you can purchase here. They are on SALE now! If you want to learn more about these brand new products you will find all the information here.
Books To Read If You Want To Improve Your Finances
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert T. Kiyosaki
- The Richest Man in Babylon Paperback by George S. Clason
- The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing by Mel Lindauer
- The intelligent investor by Brando Graham
- Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century by Napoleon Hill
- Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
- Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money by Vicki Robin
- You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
- The Total Money Makeover Workbook by Dave Ramsey
- The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss
- The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works by Ramit Sethi
- The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
- Start Your Own Corporation: Why the Rich Own Their Own Companies and Everyone Else Works for Them by Garrett Sutton
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Stay positive, be mindful and cultivate a deep sense of love for yourself
xo Kate
2 thoughts on “7 Self-Love Habits That Will Help You To Thrive During Difficult Times”
I LOVE it, Kate! You have a real gift of providing advice that’s warm, encouraging and motivating.
I’m trying to start breathing exercises at the moment actually, less because of mental health benefits and more because of my breathing issues, some of which seem to be from previous intercostal muscle damage and the connective tissue disease. I’ve noticed a difference already, so I want to learn a bit more about the different types of exercises and how best to open up my breathing. I’m being referred to a respiratory physiotherapist but in the mean time I’m working on it myself. I know a lot of people benefit from adding breathing techniques to mindfulness and meditation.
Some really fab suggestions here as always!
Caz xx
Hi Caz!
I’m glad you’re trying to start breathing exercises! I truly believe you can benefit from it. I personally find guided breathing exercises the most effective. Not to mention that they’re easy to follow. I also like 4-7-8 Breathing exercises especially right before bed. But the thing that is helping me to fall asleep is music. Since I’ve found SleepTube - Hypnotic Relaxation on Youtube I fall asleep faster and most importantly I stay asleep. Oh, I so glad that today there are so many free health and wellness resources to help you not only survive but thrive during difficult times.
THANK YOU, Caz for your kind words!! I hope you’re doing well. Have a beautiful and peaceful week! I am very happy to have met you in this online world!