It's time to start loving yourself the way you deserve to be loved. That's a success predictor even in professional life, where your level of self-love and support correlates with your ability to lead yourself to greater heights. Here are five things you can do to begin leading, and loving, yourself with the grace and supportiveness you deserve.
1. Start with loving talk.
Start with loving talk - always. Be patient with yourself. Be supportive.
Society often frames critical self-talk, that self-imposed sarcastic rim shot against yourself, as "funny". "Oh, what a fool I am. I'm so stupid. What a loser! Ha ha!"
It's not funny. It's damaging. It hurts.
Love yourself enough to develop an inner flow of talk that is courageous, supportive and strong. Hit the stop button the moment you begin to frame a laugh against yourself. You will feel the difference immediately.
2. Silence the inner criticism.
Once you've made a commitment to talk to yourself kindly, the next step is to silence those inner, cutting voices that come from people long-gone. Turn the volume off on those stale thoughts from parents, colleagues, or authority figures whose negative messages of doubt, unworthiness, or disbelief in you continue to grind you down, even decades after the persons themselves are gone.
I'd say "just let go" here, but really, it is not so much letting go, as replacing it with something better. Build yourself up. Tell those old messages to be silent. Build a library of encouraging things you'll say if they try to crop up.
You are far more than those critics ever know. Become an expert at standing up for yourself internally.
3. Silence the outer criticism.
You're talking to yourself kindly, and mitigating the carping messages from the past.... Now the hard one: Love yourself enough to let go of toxic people in your life. You know the ones I mean. The ones who always have the cutting word or the smug laugh at your expense, even though they frame it as funny, or just joking, or tell you you're too sensitive.
Join me in a quick inventory. How are your relationships? Are there people who you associate with because you feel you "have to" even though you feel awful for days afterward? Are there people who leave you feeling off balance, doubting, ashamed of who you are? Who leave you doing damage control emotionally after even a brief phone call or conversation? Those are the alarm bells, and they're the people to let go. If you can, you can talk to them about it, but realize that many people won't even acknowledge they're doing something wrong or hurtful. Love yourself enough to insist on better boundaries before your beautiful soul ends up in the emotional ER.
Only you can stand up for the quality of relationships in your life. You have the right to let go of those who set your inner alarm bells off. Insist on a better quality of relationships, and they will come to you.
4. Start setting achievement goals.
You've silenced three kinds of critical voices. Next, take time to love yourself enough to build the achievement you deserve to have. Start by setting personal or professional achievement goals. Then put them into action.
Maybe they are long cherished. Maybe they're an achievement you've never even thought of before. What do you dream of doing? Speaking at an industry conference? Publishing a paper? Is it amazing? Is it wonderful to you? Do it!!
Plan a bigger, better future. Only you can do it. And, a tip - don't believe anyone who tries to tell you all the reasons you can't. Because you can. You just need to begin.
5. Start believing you can go farther.
Lastly, start loving yourself enough to believe that you can go farther in life. Because you can. That belief alone will take you much farther into achievement, excellence, and happiness. Do you need to know someone believes in you? I believe in you. I know that you are amazing. You are unique, and wonderful, and bring a wholly unique set of superpowers into this world. Go forth and use them.
You only get one big, beautiful life. What will you do with it? Dream bigger, and make your dreams into reality, step by step. Start by loving yourself the way you deserve to be loved -- and head out from there. You're unstoppable!
How will you transform your life into better loving of yourself as you #healworklife ?
Keep Growing,
