What Is Self-love And How To Practice It Everyday

In this blog, I talk about the definition of self-love and how you can practice it every single day with four actionable tips.

Let me ask you a question.

How many times have you taken pride in saying that you find it easier to do something for others, but not for yourself?

Perhaps that looks like…

• Buying a gift
• Constantly over-giving in a relationship
• Being tough on yourself
• Finding it hard to celebrate your achievements 
• Never praising yourself
• Choking at the thought of expressing your needs

Unfortunately, when we fail to love ourselves enough, we don’t think that we are worthy enough to deserve praise, rest, abundance, love-and all of the other good things in life. We think that others are more deserving of our love and respect, than we are ourselves.

For many of us, adopting a self-love practice might feel like a luxury or a new age fad that is only accessible to a select lucky few, especially if you’re a woman; and it’s even worse for mums. You may even think of self-love as selfish and something that you’ll simply never have time for.

But, contrary to popular misinterpretation, self-love isn’t about expensive shopping, elaborate spa days or lazy brunch rituals. Self-love in its simplest, most basic form, is placing your own needs above others’ and not being tough on yourself or judging yourself harshly.

So, here’s how to start building your most important relationship – the relationship that you should have with yourself.

🌻 Accept your flaws and imperfections: No one is perfect, not even the Universe. Let’s take the pressure off and be a little kinder to ourselves. 

☀️ Stop comparing yourself to others: We’re all on different journeys, living different lives. We need to learn to appreciate our differences instead of constant comparison and trying to be like everyone else.

🏖 Practice self-compassion: Your feelings matter. You matter. What you think, want and need matters, so stop holding yourself back. Honour how you feel and express those feelings.

🌸 Allow yourself to make mistakes: When you first learnt to walk or ride a bike, how many times did you fall? And do you now know how to walk or ride a bike? So, just follow the same principle with life. Take messy action, make mistakes, learn from them and pick yourself back up! No regrets. 

Four ways you can practice daily self-love

I thought I’d collate some simple and actionable tips for you, without having to create unrealistic routines or unattainable goals. 

Affirmations: Writing affirmations in your journal or even speaking them out loud can be an incredibly powerful way to change your mindset and how you feel about yourself. If you need a little help with coming up with your own positive affirmations, why not check out this list of 100, over at Through the Phases? Plus, if you’d like some more guidance on changing up your mindset, you can read our other blog post.

Practice Saying No: Learning to draw your boundaries and practicing saying no to what feels like an obligation or heavy is one of the most powerful ways to practice self-love. Drawing your boundaries will help you only say yes to opportunities that light you up, instead of draining you and in turn create more time for yourself. As tough as it may seem, you can do this by politely telling a friend or a client that “you are a bit occupied with other priorities right now and that you’ll get back to them when you’re ready”. 

Eat Whole Foods and Move Your Body: “Exercise is king, nutrition is queen. Put them together, and you’ve got a kingdom.” – Jack LoLanne. There’s no denying that daily movement and fuelling yourself in the right way can have a direct impact on both the way you feel and how you handle the day-to-day challenges that life can present. Prioritise YOU – engage in movement that you love and enjoy. Pick nutritious and colourful plates of food that brighten up your day and bring plenty of natural goodness into your body.

Down Time: Take time out to read a magazine, book or blog post. If reading isn’t for you, then why not listen to a podcast? There are plenty of wonderful humans out there talking about self-love, such as Selina and Vicki over at Love Project Love.

Real glow up is not all about your career success, a 7-figure biz, all the things you can buy or even that perfect relationship. You can see what I believe it to be over on my Instagram.

Chat soon xx