How To Love Myself
How to Love Myself: A Guide to Improving Self Esteem
It took me a great deal of time (and heartache) to realize that no one else could really love me until I first learned how to love myself. The low self esteem problem, for me, began in high school. It started when I noticed that I was built more “curvy” than other girls. One day I was walking through the halls and it just struck me that I wasn’t ultra-thin like most of the other girls, which is when the “seed” of low self esteem first took root in my brain. I began thinking, “What other ‘bad’ things about me am I blind to?” A bad test grade would make me feel “dumb”, which in turn made me approach homework with a feeling of hopelessness.
The problem worsened as time went by. Instead of noticing a fault and countering it with a positive observation about myself, I simply kept digging around for more bad things. I often felt that I wasn’t good enough when compared to others—which led to a never ending struggle to reach perfection. There was always something about my looks or personality that I felt needed to be changed. Rather than accepting these as important pieces of the “puzzle” that makes up my unique self, I dwelled on them as flaws and spent all of my energy worrying about things I couldn’t change. Even my closest friends began voicing concerns about my self esteem. I was often told that I needed to learn to accept a compliment and to stop being so hard on myself.
After a great deal of reflection, I realized that my friends were right. That’s when I admitted that I needed to figure out how to love myself. Many people confuse self-love for arrogance, but these are two very different things. An arrogant person is more likely to feel that they are truly better than everyone else. A healthy dose of self-love simply enables a person to understand their self worth rather than deny his/her self happiness on the belief that they aren’t good enough or deserving.
The first step I took in improving my self esteem was to force myself to accept compliments graciously without allowing the voice inside my head to hunt for something negative to overshadow one of my positive points. I allowed myself to dwell on these compliments long enough to realize that, yes, I do have nice qualities and that’s okay! If someone complimented one of my work reports, I wouldn’t allow myself to think of how I jammed the copy machine a week ago. Instead, I would think to myself, “You know what, I did work really hard on that report. I’m entitled to a job well done!” That’s not arrogance, that’s a healthy appreciation for my own hard work.
Don’t strive for perfection. That’s one that I had a hard time overcoming, but it was also one of the most invigorating periods during my life. After years of constantly gauging the people around me—and ruthlessly comparing myself to them—it was wonderful to start taking “rebellious” steps. Things as simple as going to the store without doing my makeup or throwing my hair in a ponytail instead of styling it. These things that had once played a crucial role in my day to day functioning were now becoming less important and gave way to a newfound sense of confidence. I’m not saying that I dressed like a slob and stopped caring about hygiene or anything, but I allowed myself to accept the fact that I don’t have to be “made up” to precision for a quick trip to the store—that’s not what makes me a valuable person. No one is perfect; striving for perfection is merely wasted energy.
I also had to learn that there are some faults worth changing and others that are simply part of my individuality and not really “faults” at all. For example, a doctor telling an obese person that they need to make dietary and exercise changes for health reasons—that’s a “fault” worth changing. Having freckles or a quirky laugh are characteristics that make a person unique and shouldn’t be dwelled up as negative traits.
Encouraging new friendships is a great way to boost self esteem. I found that smiling at others as they passed or keeping eye contact while holding my head high when someone talked to me worked wonders towards making friends. I realized that these positive actions are like an invitation to others. If I were to stare at the floor or slouch over while someone is talking to me, they are going to think I’m not interested in what they have to say—which is like holding up a stop sign during the conversation. A friendly and approachable demeanor encouraged others to want to get to know me, and the more often this happened, the more my self confidence grew.
It took me a long time to understand how to love myself, and even longer to overcome the low self esteem I had been nursing since high school. –But if I can do it, you can too!