How to Love Yourself: 22 Tips From Therapists

What Is Self-Love & Why Is It Important?

Loving yourself involves embracing your entire being, including your strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and challenges, successes and mistakes. Self-love is a healthy and stable self-concept based on your own ideas, observations, and values, rather than others’ opinions and judgments.

Self-love is foundational to your mental health and well-being. You become more vulnerable to physical and mental health problems when you rely on others to shape how you feel about yourself.¹

The benefits of self-love may include:^{1, 2}

• Decreased anxiety and depression
• Decreased risk of substance use
• Improved physical health
• Increased rates of success and goal achievement
• Lower fears of failure
• Stable self-worth
• Improved motivation, even in the face of challenges
• Enhanced relationships
• Healthier lifestyle choices (i.e., exercise, diet, etc.)
• Freedom from unhealthy dependencies on others for approval and validation
• The ability to set healthy boundaries
• Improved resilience to overcome obstacles, challenges, and stressful situations

How to Love Yourself: 22 Tips

Developing self-love is not an all-or-nothing process reserved for the most self-confident individuals. Instead, anyone can read self-love books and develop skills to become less self-critical and more self-compassionate. Focus on your strengths, fostering healthy relationships, and being your authentic self.

Below are 22 tips on how to love yourself:

1. Identify & Embrace Your Strengths

Nurture self-love by overcoming your inner critic and identifying your strengths, talents, and positive traits.⁴ Doing so allows you to use these characteristics instead of dwelling on what you perceive as faults, improving confidence in yourself and your abilities.

Davina Tiwari, MSW, RSW, CSFT explains, “We often are our own worst self-critic, and so it’s important we consider our personal strengths, abilities, skills, and positive qualities. If you find it hard to do this, it may help to take some time to write down your ideas or ask a loved one what they like most about you to see if that helps get the ball rolling.”

2. Develop a Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness involves training your mind to be more present, aware, and engaged rather than distracted by thoughts. Negative self-thoughts keep people stuck in a cycle of reacting and self-criticizing. Mindfulness helps people create space and distance, allowing them to separate from such thoughts and choose different responses.

Some of the mindfulness practices that can help improve self-love include:^{1, 3, 4}

• Loving-kindness meditation: Renowned meditation teacher, expert, and author Sharon Salzberg recommends loving-kindness meditation to help shift the mind from self-critical thoughts to self-love. In this practice, you repeat positive intentions and desires for yourself.
• RAIN: Buddhist teacher Michele McDonald created RAIN before psychologist and author Tara Brach adapted the technique. RAIN uses mindfulness to Recognize thoughts and feelings, Accept them, Investigate them with curiosity, and Nurture them.
• Sitting meditation: The key to formal meditation is to sit, lie, or intentionally move as you focus on one thing, such as a word, a series of phrases, your breath, an object, or a sound.
• Grounding: Grounding techniques teach people to become more aware of the present by focusing on one or more of the five senses. You can pull attention away from the voice of your inner critic by noticing things you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch.

3. Keep Comparisons in Check

Comparing yourself to others is a common but dangerous habit that undermines self-love. Everywhere you go, you may see and evaluate others in ways that make you feel “less than,” diverting your attention to shortcomings or flaws. You might make comparisons when on social media, watching TV, or just caught up in your thoughts.

While you cannot stop this behavior completely (because comparison is a built-in part of human behavior), you can minimize its negative impact.

Below are tips on how to stop comparing yourself to others:

• Self-monitor: Increase your awareness of the tendency to compare yourself to others.
• Redirect: Redirect your thoughts to something else when you catch yourself in a negative self-comparison.
• Reverse: Most of the time, comparing yourself to others emphasizes what you feel you lack. Looking for things to be grateful for can help you reverse this and find ways to appreciate what you have.
• Zoom out: Zoom out of the situation to consider yourself, your feelings, motivations, and needs to consider how these factor into your choices and actions.

4. Set Healthy Boundaries

Setting healthy boundaries is essential when learning to love yourself. According to Dr. Supriya Blair, “Boundaries (physical, emotional, time, energy, financial, etc.) are ways we communicate with others about what we are willing and able to do or give and what we are not willing and able to do or give.”

Jennifer Shapiro-Lee, MSW, LCSW-R says, “A big part of self-love is understanding our boundaries and learning when to say yes or no. When someone asks you to do something, categorize it into one of three options–I have to do this, I should do this, and I don’t want to do this. This way, you can see how to spend your valuable time while caring for your own needs and well-being.”

5. Set Small, Tangible Goals & Follow Through

Recognizing tangible and realistic goals is another important step to self-love. According to Emily Griffin, MA, LCPC, “Following through on goals and intentions is very helpful in building self-worth. We learn to distrust ourselves when we make promises and do not keep them.

If we distrust ourselves, we often do not feel safe and build resentment. When we follow through on promises, we feel proud and fulfilled, boosting our mood and beliefs so we can meet our needs. Make these goals small and tangible to ensure you follow through.”

6. Write Down Your Accomplishments & What You’re Proud Of

Consider your accomplishments if you wonder how  you can love yourself more.” Emily Griffin encourages, “Make a list each night of your progress and accomplishments.

We often focus on negatives and what we did not do ‘right,’ exacerbating negative self-talk that can lead to feeling hopeless. We build and strengthen neurotransmitter connections to make us hopeful when we train our brains to focus on small bits of follow-through. Some examples of this could be not reacting in anger to someone, keeping boundaries by turning off work emails at a certain time, taking a walk, or disconnecting from social media earlier than usual.”

7. Let Go of Shame & Be Your Authentic Self

Accept yourself unconditionally when learning to love yourself again. Living authentically means lessening the filter that restricts your ability to share more of yourself, your feelings, and your experiences with others. Being more honest and open about how you feel, what you believe, and who you are can be freeing. It can also deepen and improve your relationships with others and yourself.

Dian Grier, LCSW reminds us, “Part of self-love is to let go of shame and learn to live authentically. Self-love is extremely difficult when we hide parts of ourselves, believing we have to keep secrets and hide feelings of shame.

Bringing these feelings to the light and sharing all parts of ourselves with those we trust can allow us to free ourselves and feel more compassion for ourselves and others. We free ourselves to love ourselves just as we are, beginning the amazing process of learning self-love.”

8. Love Yourself Unconditionally–No Strings Attached

Many people have certain “conditions” they place on their self-worth that determine whether they love and accept themselves. Hailey Shafir, LCMHCS, LPCS, LCAS, CCS explains,

“External circumstances can often explain these fluctuations in self-love–we feel good about ourselves when we meet a goal or receive praise and bad about ourselves when we make a mistake, feel insecure, or let someone down.

The secret to becoming free from these ups and downs is to stop letting our self-worth be contingent on ANYTHING, including what happens to us, who likes us, what we have or don’t, or even the choices we make.”

Like you already do with someone you love unconditionally (i.e., a child, partner, etc.), learn to soften your words, be kind, forgive yourself, and let things go, even when you make a mistake or expose a flaw. These steps to love yourself provide opportunities to remove any conditions or limitations restricting you.

9. Practice Daily Affirmations

Affirmations work, even though they seem simple. Kelly O’Sullivan, LCSW says,“One of my favorite tips to start building more self-love and confidence is doing daily affirmations or body positive affirmations. Try writing out three affirmations, starting with, ‘I am,’ ‘I can,’ and ‘I will.’ Place the affirmations somewhere you will see them throughout the day—like your laptop, water bottle, or bathroom mirror.”

10. Carve Out Time for Things That Feed Your Soul

Self-love involves making time to do things that leave you fulfilled, nourished, and restored. Silvi Saxena, MBA, MSW, LSW, CCTP, OSW-C points out, “Self-love and self-care is like watering our souls with the nutrition we need to grow and sustain ourselves. Just like we water our plants and flowers, we must pour this nurturing into our own selves to ensure we don’t wither away.” Ashley Kirkpatrick, MS, NCC, LPC adds, “It is imperative to ensure we are taking time for ourselves and engaging in these strategies with the intention to feed our mind, body, and soul.”

Davina Tiwari states, “We need to take time to do things that make us feel good, relaxed, comfortable, and happy. This could include engaging in a favorite activity or hobby, connecting with the people you care about, practicing meditation or yoga, and giving yourself permission to take time for yourself.”

11. Learn & Practice What Works for You

Like so many skills, self-love is a process that involves learning more about who you are. Ashley Stuck, LCSW reminds us, “It is difficult to love yourself because you ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ We are not born with the innate ability to walk or talk–we have to learn those skills through practice and guidance.

Self-love is no different and takes practice, understanding, and guidance. It will take time and practice to unlearn criticism and self-loathing and relearn self-love. It can be difficult, yet it will be worth it.”

12. Forgive Yourself for Past Mistakes

A critical step in loving yourself is allowing yourself to make mistakes. According to Gina Marie Guarino, LMHC, “One way you can promote self-love is by forgiving yourself for mistakes you have made in your past. Remembering nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes, can help you let go of grief.”

13. Interrupt Your Negative Thoughts

Your inner dialogue forms the basis of your relationship with yourself. Like many people, you may have a loud voice that constantly undermines and questions your decisions. While well-intentioned, this “inner critic” can poison your relationship with yourself and has a “significant impact on your ability to love yourself,” according to Courtney Kirkpatrick, MS, NCC, LPC.

Don’t repeat self-critical or negative thoughts. Instead, shift attention away from your self-critical thoughts to a different, kinder, and more helpful perspective. Try to get out of your head if you can’t find one at the moment. Bring your full attention and awareness to some aspect of your present experience—where you are, what you are doing or seeing, or what sensations you notice in your body.

14. Challenge Your Critical Beliefs

The next tip on loving yourself is challenging your inner critic, according to Kimberly Panganiban, LMFT. Ask yourself helpful questions when a negative thought arises. For example, ‘Is this really true,’ ‘Could this be an opinion rather than fact,’ or ‘What evidence do I have that this is not true?’ Panganiban adds, “These questions can help you challenge your negative thoughts and develop kinder, more gentle thoughts about yourself.”

15. Practice Gratitude for Your Life

Sometimes, focusing on the negative aspects of yourself and your life is easy. However, doing so can leave you ignoring and disengaging from the things worthy of celebrating. Practicing gratitude regularly can help shift this pattern and draw attention to the positives.

April Brown, LMFT suggests, “Write down a list of things you value and appreciate about yourself and focus on non-physical attributes. Think about the person you have the closest relationship within your family and imagine asking them what they value about you.”

16. Do Things for Others

Research shows doing kind things for others increases our overall well-being and happiness.^{5, 6} We more likely see ourselves positively when we feel helpful and appreciated. With time, loving ourselves and seeing ourselves as deserving of care and nurturing becomes easier.

17. Connect With Positive People

The people with whom we spend the most time greatly impact us. Surrounding ourselves with positive individuals will inevitably improve our own outlooks. These people support and encourage you, which can help you acknowledge and appreciate your innate value.

18. Take Care of Your Body & Mind

Caring for yourself–both physically and mentally–is an action of self-love. Engaging in necessary and sometimes mundane aspects of self-care shows us we deserve health, happiness, and positivity. This action will help you reinforce self-love and identify new ways to care for yourself.

19. Improve Your Self-Confidence

You will inevitably develop healthier self-esteem and confidence when you begin to love and care for yourself. Hillary Thomas, LCSW suggests, “Explore stories others have told you about yourself and see whether these stories are true or false. Are you holding onto a negative story getting in the way of self-acceptance and love? When you let go of past narratives, you become more free to define yourself. Uncovering these stories can help you see yourself more clearly, increase self-compassion, and re-author your own story.”

20. Set Realistic Expectations

We often feel disappointed, embarrassed, or ashamed when we do not meet expectations. We essentially set ourselves up for failure when we hold ourselves to unrealistic standards. Setting realistic goals and aspirations allows us to achieve success and feel good about these wins.

21. Heal Your Inner Child

We develop much of our foundation and understanding of ourselves in childhood. Whether we had unconditional love, encouragement, and safety as a child reflects in our current view of ourselves, others, and the world. Healing any emotional wounds you carry from childhood, or healing childhood trauma can be essential when learning to love yourself. Working through these challenges with a therapist can help.

22. Embrace Creativity

Feeling disconnected from emotions is not uncommon when a person lacks a healthy internal relationship with themselves. A great way to connect with yourself is through creativity–drawing, sculpting, singing, and dancing are all options that can help build self-love.

When to Seek Professional Help

Mental health professionals exist to help people work through all types of challenges, including low self-esteem. Many people seek therapy to improve their self-esteem or self-worth because therapists can help them overcome issues related to perfectionism and develop more self-compassion.

Finding and choosing a therapist, counselor, or psychologist can significantly improve your well-being. Consider browsing an online therapist directory to locate an in-network or nearby provider to help you start loving yourself. You can also participate in online therapy from the comfort of your home or anyplace you have an internet connection.