How to Love Yourself Well

Amid an online world reflecting a mad love of ourselves and lives of comfort and fun, there are healthier, albeit more challenging, ways to love ourselves.

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Amid a world of selfies reflecting a mad love of ourselves and the pursuit of comfort and fun, there are healthier, albeit more challenging, ways to care for and love ourselves.

I must be crazy to write a piece about how to love yourself in a world in which people seem to be madly in love with themselves already. Selfishness and self-interest are at peak levels, with topics such as self-control, self-denial, and responsibility being put on the back burner in favor of comfort and pleasure.

Call me crazy, though, because I think that most people aren’t loving themselves very well. If you’re going to love someone—anyone, including yourself—you may as well do it the right way.

The right kind of self-love can be transformational and help us snap out of the spell that the modern world has cast on us. We need each other, and we were meant for more than staring at screens and functioning as units in a big economy.

8 Steps Toward Healthy Self-Love

If you’re going to love yourself, and you should, these are my tips.

1. Love Yourself by Denying Yourself

Most of us have our needs taken care of and then some. Many of you reading this have lives of immense security and convenience by the standards of history, and this has likely shaped you more than you could ever realize. Love sometimes means denying yourself some of these comforts to recalibrate your expectations and see what really matters.

2. Love Yourself by Making Others Happy

It is a twisted truth that the harder we chase happiness, the more elusive it can sometimes be. But of course, this concept isn’t so foreign. If you try too hard to make a child happy, you can sometimes spoil him or her and bring about a life of strife. The antidote to this is to give your love away. If you do this, it cannot be spoiled, and it can transform others. Ultimately, it will also transform you from the inside out.

3. Love Yourself by Doing Hard Things

One of the best ways to love yourself is by pushing yourself to do hard things that are outside your comfort zone. If you love someone, you don’t want him to stay immature and childlike; rather, you want to see him grow. Growth comes by facing up to challenges and realizing that you can overcome them.

4. Love Yourself by Adding Wonder and Mystery to Your Life

We live in a rational and scientific age, but cracks are showing. More and more people seem to be looking to nature or spirituality to fill a void that was once filled by the unknown aspects of the world. This might sound as though I’m telling you to be naive and not seek out knowledge, but really, it’s an invitation to bathe your mind in all the mysteries that still remain.

5. Love Yourself by Finding True Rest

There used to be a time when work was work and rest was rest. Perhaps this was because work used to be harder and more physically demanding by necessity. Many people now enjoy jobs that are less physically brutal. The kind of rest I’m referring to is mental rest. The stream of information we take in is nonstop. Listening to podcasts isn’t resting. There’s never any downtime for our brains. Stepping back from the clamor so we can hear our own thoughts again and notice those around us with more clarity is a deeper form of love for ourselves.

6. Love Yourself by Speaking to Yourself Like a Friend

Have you ever talked to a friend the way you talk to yourself? If you did, you’d probably quickly realize how unhelpful it is. When speaking with friends, we try to meet them where they are, empathize with them, and give them the little boost they need to get back on track. That’s the way of love. We need to speak to ourselves the same way.

7. Love Yourself by Going Outside, Eating Real Food, and Sleeping in the Dark

Our world is hyperfocused on health and wellness, always offering a new way to spend your money or invest your energy in feeling better about yourself and your body. I’m not against that, but I want to highlight that life can be simpler than all of that. When you eat the food of the earth, step into the open air to experience the elements, and sleep deeply in a cool, dark room, you will know nearly all you need to know about good health.

8. Love Yourself by Remembering That You Were Made on Purpose, for a Purpose

Each of us matters in the ultimate sense. Our actions reverberate through eternity, and life itself is a sacred gift. Believing this might just make you love yourself in a new and richer way.