“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
Charles Bukowski, greatg American poet
We all want to feel loved, and most of us assume that this must come from other people. When you depend on other people for love, you risk having it snatched away from you, leaving you empty and shattered.
Learning to love and accept oneself is one of the most difficult things. It requires attempting to prioritize your needs and desires above the needs and desires of others.
Even though it may seem selfish at first, prioritizing your well-being is the first step toward being a better person. Below are some pointers on why it is so important to love yourself first.
Do not forget, that no one can do it for you, You and only You can start this journey to improve your quality of life.
There is a need to appreciate yourself so that you can embrace your purpose in life. If you love yourself first, you will enjoy various incredible benefits.
8 Benefits of Loving Yourself First
1. Brings Joy
Self-love can boost one’s mental well-being. One can only feel better, more certain, secure, and happier in better surroundings. Once this occurs, you could assist other people’s lives.
Your life will be full of happiness if you know your self-worth. Since you won’t be afraid of failing and won’t care what others think of you, you’ll try new things. Additionally, you will be self-assured and driven to accomplish your objectives.
2. Improves Your Mental Health
According to research, those with high self-confidence are less likely to suffer anxiety or sadness. This does not mean you can’t love yourself if you’re nervous or sad. It suggests that parts of self-love (including self-care and positive affirmations) might aid with symptom management.
If you love yourself, you won’t have the prevailing assumption that you are to blame for your mental unwellness. You can also do exercises such as yoga to help in your meditation and improve your self-awareness.
Being gentle with yourself will help you realize who you are. Make difficult decisions in your best interest, reward yourself with something wonderful, go to the spa, and so on. You can only accept yourself and reignite your light by doing this. You have the right to experience love because it is truly beautiful. Wanting something does not make you a terrible person.
Self-love is one of the most important things you can do for your mental health. It’s not about being selfish or thinking about yourself all the time; it simply means taking care of yourself, ensuring you’re in a place where you feel good about who you are and what you have to offer.
3. Helps to have Better Relationships
When you love yourself, you can be in a relationship with people. You will not be afraid to let others know how you feel about them, and they will know that you mean what you say.
If a relationship has broken down or is going through a rough patch, it will be easier for both parties to communicate their needs and expectations. If someone is too busy loving themselves, it can create problems in friendships because they do not have time for the other person.
When we love ourselves, we realize we have much to offer our partner and can do more than fill in the gaps when needed.
4 Enhances Well Being
Loving yourself first is the most important step to becoming your best. It’s not selfish to love and appreciate yourself; it’s self-care and self-acceptance. Loving yourself first makes it easier to be kinder to others because you know that you are worth it.
When you prioritize loving yourself, you will realize that your life is worth living and worth sharing with others. Loving yourself first allows you to feel compassion for others struggling with their self-worth issues.
You will be able to enjoy the simple things in life, like going for a walk or taking a bath, without feeling guilty about them because of how much better you feel about yourself when you do them.
5. Improves Self Esteem
Loving yourself is the key to having a healthy self-esteem. This is important in your life because it allows you to accept who you are, no matter what. Also, it can help you feel good about yourself and your life.
If you lack self-love, it’s hard to like other people and enjoy their company. Loving yourself means accepting your flaws and imperfections and knowing that no matter what happens in your life, there will always be someone who loves the real you, not just some idealized version of yourself.
Self-esteem will come up regularly while talking about putting yourself first. It involves trusting your abilities, worth, and distinctiveness. Taking measures to first love oneself has the impact of helping those with low self-esteem. Your final goal should be to feel more self-assured and have self-respect, as these qualities will lead to much higher self-acceptance.
Your authenticity deepens when you learn to embrace who you are. You stop striving to live up to other people’s expectations of you and your perfectionist standards and start letting yourself be who you are.
6. Increases Productivity
When you love yourself first, you will be more productive. It will not matter what other people think of you. No need to put yourself down or feel bad about yourself. You know that no matter what happens, your self-esteem is the only thing that matters.
When you’re confident in yourself, it becomes easier to push through obstacles and face challenges head-on instead of running away from them.
7. Allows to Staying Grateful
Loving yourself also allows you to stay grateful. Typically, you’ll be able to see what you’re happy for and experience more happiness in your life. Also, you’ll appreciate your family and friends more and realize how lucky you are to have them in your life. This will help you spend time with them more often, which will make you happier than ever before.
8. Supports a Healthier Body
By loving yourself first, you will be able to take better care of your body by paying attention to what it deserves. This means less stress on other parts of your life, like work or family obligations.
Also, you can eat healthier because you know what foods give you energy and make you feel good. Similarly, you can exercise because it’s fun for you — not because it’s part of a set goal or deadline by a doctor or trainer. Later, after looking at yourself in the mirror each morning with a smile, you will realize that nothing can pull you back from achieving your goals.
9. Comforts with Inner Peace
Loving yourself first is the key to inner peace and gratefulness. You can live your life with passion and purpose if you love yourself, and have more energy, focus, and motivation. Also, feel good about who you are and what you do.
8 Techniques for Self Love
Make a list of things you need to do, and organize yourself. Getting a journal is a good idea or you can use any application on your phone. Take notes, prioritize, and put some time for yourself on your schedule.
How to Love Yourself First
The following are various feasible ways to love yourself first:
1. Set Boundaries
To love yourself first, you first need to set boundaries. You should not waste time on toxic people who can compromise your well-being. Similarly, you should not worry about what people think or expect from you. Instead, you should formulate your principles, have self-respect, and find a best friend who is worth your value. Also, although it is good to treat your friends, you should also set a limit on the extent to which you treat them.
2. Prioritize on Self Care
Self-care is also helpful in achieving individual love. This can involve strolling within your neighborhood and repeating positive sayings about yourself in a mirror.
Nonetheless, you can also do the following to achieve self-care:
Mindfulness: involves your basic ability to present and create awareness of who you are, where you are, and what you are doing without paying attention to what is evolving around you.
Meditation: This involves paying close attention to the present moment with a nonjudgemental and accepting disposition. This act will reduce stress, increase clarity, and enhance calmness.
Aromatherapy: This is a feasible self-care approach you can use to prevent stress from perpetrating in your body. It generally triggers the pleasure response essential for individual care. You can easily achieve this by walking, taking deep breaths, giving love to others, and self-massage.
Baths: Taking a bath can help you to loosen the tension in your body muscles, and water will make you feel weightless. By taking baths, you will feel fresh and relaxed.
Candles: Have attractive scents that will stimulate your mental health. They can help you stay calm and boost your energy.
Sage: This will enhance your mood by eliminating bad energies and negative emotions. This will help you to stay mindful.
Positive affirmations: Practicing positive affirmations each day for about 10 minutes will help you have greater attention to yourself. Generally, these sayings will help you to stay attentive on issues that allow you to stay rocking.
3. Self Acceptance
Self-acceptance is limitless—you must discover your weaknesses and fully accept yourself. Also, this involves self-satisfaction, irrespective of your past choices and flaws. Further, you can take deep, slow breaths to understand yourself better when viewing your belly. This will later enhance your happiness and health.
4. Know your Self Worth
When we know our self-worth, we can love ourselves and others more. If you know your self-worth, you will be much more able to have stable relationships than others. However, learning your self-worth will involve boosting your low self-esteem and reciting positive affirmations to yourself. This will create happiness, popularity, and success.
5. Understanding Your well being
To gain self-love, you also need to understand your overall well-being. You need to evaluate yourself from mental well-being, relationships, self-esteem, and health to prosperity. This will help you to identify possible ways of building your self-worth and help you stay happy.
6. Control Your Feelings
If you want to gain self-love, you must control your emotions. For example, if you feel angry, you should try to calm down and avoid making rash decisions. Additionally, you should learn to prevent prioritizing giving love to others. This will help you develop a healthy connection with yourself and others.
7. Focus on What Matters Most
You should focus on what matters most to you. For instance, you can choose to stay targeted on your family, friends, career, hobbies, or other things that matter to you. By doing so, you can build your self-confidence and self-love.
8. Stay Motivated
You should always remain motivated for all the good things in life. This will enable you to appreciate yourself and others. It will also make you happier and healthier.
It’s Your Responsibility
If you wish to be happy and have no regrets in your life, you must learn to love yourself. Perhaps you were cautious because someone previously told you that you were unworthy of love. As a result, you’ve been self-bullying about it ever since. The traumatic experience leaves a person hurt and lowers self-esteem.
However, this is the barrier that our society must break. You are deserving of love, and you are a wonderful individual. Do you want to waste your life feeling sad about feeling sorry for yourself?
Hatred just serves to generate more hatred, sorrow, and strife. Do you want to be always at odds with yourself? Or do you favor peace and the creation of incredible new things? Everything else is on the opposite side of a full life.
Putting your confidence in the hands of others will lead to unhappiness. After all, it is not someone else’s duty. It is wrong to coerce people to finish your task. You must love yourself before your parents, spouse, and children. The moment has arrived to take control of that.
It’s Not Selfish
When an aircraft takes off, passengers are usually urged to put on their oxygen masks before helping other people. It is not selfish because you’ll die if you choose to assist someone who cannot help themselves. To put oneself through hardship to be there for others is impractical and not courageous.
The same is true for helping others; you must first love yourself. Put yourself first, avoid exhausting circumstances, and pick what’s best for you. Although it looks self-centered, it is not a terrible thing at all.
You Deserve It
Probably, you were frequently instructed as a youngster that loving oneself is not something you should do. You should put other people’s needs first and take advantage of their efforts only after that.
In some cases, you could have loved a toxic person who showed you contempt. You need to appreciate yourself. Given that you are lovely, kind, and noble, why would you believe you deserve anything less?
Bottom Line
Even though you may spend your whole life-giving love away in the hopes of earning it back, life is not a commercial arrangement. Some individuals merely take, but you keep giving even though it undermines your self-care.
When you love yourself unconditionally, you give yourself the freedom to love others as they deserve. In this case, you can never run out of love since you’ll have an unending supply.
Loving yourself first is a simple practice and brings countless benefits. From better mental well-being, staying happy, inner peace, improved self-esteem, and increased productivity to better connections, this act will help you to achieve these benefits. Don’t watch people enjoy such benefits; start a love for yourself.
You can genuinely transform yourself once you learn to accept yourself. Moreover, now possess the self-assurance, boldness, and resolve to achieve.
Furthermore, cease relying on other people to provide you with all the emotional rewards of love. When you accomplish this, greatness will come.
Frequently Asked Questions
People also ask:
Is it True That You Have to Love Yourself First?
Yes, you have to love yourself first. If you don’t love yourself, then how can you expect anyone else to love you? And if they don’t, you’ll just have a hard time being happy. But what happens when we’re not able to be happy and give our best selves as we should? We end up feeling resentful and angry at ourselves for not being better than ourselves.
What Did BTS Say About Loving Yourself?
In their song “Fake Love,” BTS sing: “I’ll be the one to fake it, to cover up my flaws with an act of devotion.” It means that if you want success or to have meaningful relationships, you have to love yourself first! You are the only person who can truly love you, and only you know what makes you happy.
So, if someone does something nice for us, we should always appreciate their kindness. Self-love is something that every single person needs. It’s wonderful to be the recipient of the affection of others, but it’s as crucial to show yourself some love every day.
Who Said Love Yourself First, and Everything Else Falls into Place?
This is a well-known quote by Lucille Ball. Before caring for others, one must first care for oneself. The healthier a tree is, the more fruit it can produce. Self-love is the key to living a fulfilled and joyful life because your external environment has an impact on your inner world. To be able to accept respect and love from others, you must first set boundaries. Even if it seems cliche, loving oneself is a rewarding gift.
