Why You Can't Just Love Yourself and Expect It to Work
It’s easy to love yourself on paper.
You can say all the right things, develop helpful mantras, and allow yourself to make mistakes without thinking the worst.
But, loving yourself doesn’t mean everything else in your life will go according to plan. You can’t love yourself and expect it to “fix” your relationship. You can’t love yourself and immediately have all the confidence in the world. And, you can’t love yourself and avoid dealing with roadblocks in your personal and professional life.
If you’re using self-love as a band-aid, you might only be scratching the surface of what it truly means to care about yourself.
Simply put, loving yourself on paper looks a lot different from what it actually might be.
So, what should you really be doing, and what should you expect when you truly start to love yourself?
What Loving Yourself Really Looks Like
It’s easy to assume the choice to love yourself means everything else in your life will work out for the best. But, that’s not always realistic.
Part of truly loving yourself includes processing your worries and overcoming difficulties in healthy ways. That might include letting go of toxic situations or people in your life, rather than expecting everything to work out.
For example, if you’ve had low self-esteem in your relationship, practicing more self-love isn’t necessarily going to fix the problem. That’s especially true if you’re dealing with a toxic person. Real self-love means removing that person from your life, rather than relying on self-care and a boost in your confidence to make things better.
The same goes for a difficult job. You might have more confidence at work, but if you’re in a toxic environment, that isn’t going to change things. Self-love can force you to make difficult decisions, but it also allows you to trust yourself and have more confidence in those decisions.
Let Go of Roadblocks
You might also think that boosting your self-esteem means you’ll have confidence 24/7. Again, that’s not always realistic. Even the most confident people in the world have doubts and experience blows to their esteem.
One of the biggest roadblocks you’ll face—especially in this tech-forward world—is comparison.
Comparing yourself with others will always shake your confidence, whether it’s in person or via social media. You might feel good about your body image, where you are in life, your success, etc. But, as long as you’re comparing yourself to others, you’ll find that things don’t always “work” the way you want them to.
Self-love can be about reaching certain goals and working on yourself. But, it’s also about loving yourself right now for who you are. There will be challenges along the way because someone will always have something you want. Maybe a friend has more money and is able to go on lavish vacations. Maybe an acquaintance from high school posts pictures on social media and they’re extremely fit without having to work out.
Whatever the case, true self-love isn’t about other people—it’s about you. You can’t just go through the motions of boosting your self-esteem without letting go of comparison.
Love and Letting Go
As you can see, there’s a bit of a pattern here. You can’t just love yourself and expect everything to work if you’re not willing to let go of the things still trying to hold you back.
Whether it’s a relationship, career, or your own doubts trying to creep back in, there’s more to building your self-esteem than you might realize. Keep these ideas in mind to dig deeper into loving yourself, and recognize that it’s a lifelong journey.
Learn more about self esteem counseling or reach out if you have any questions.
