Do you want to love yourself more, but find that for some reason you have a hard time getting those self-loving thoughts to take hold?
There are a few reasons that might be happening—but one of the most important is that you may have subconscious beliefs that are blocking your ability to truly commit to believing positive things about yourself.
Today I’m going to reveal the top 3 objections my clients have to loving themselves or working on creating happiness. I think it’s important to identify these in yourself, because they’re driving your behavior without you even knowing.
So even if you think you’re all about creating more confidence and self-esteem, please have an open mind to see if you can spot any of these thought errors in your own brain, and how they may be shaping your efforts to improve your mind and your life.
THOUGHT ERROR #1
I don’t want to get arrogant or self-absorbed.
This is so common. And so wrong.
When you hate yourself, who do you spend a lot of time thinking about? YOURSELF.
Being self-loathing is way more self-absorbed than being self-loving.
When you’re self-loathing, all you do is think about yourself—what you said, what you did, how you look, what you ate, how you acted, what mistakes you’ve made, how you need to change yourself to be perfect. You’re a 24/7, self-focused, self-loathing machine.
Wherever you are right now, I can guarantee you think about yourself way more now than you would if you loved yourself. When you love yourself, you don’t think about yourself that often—you just have a background level of acceptance, love, and respect for yourself, the same way you do with a good friend. You love your friend, but you don’t think about her constantly.
When I didn’t love myself, I was constantly thinking about myself and how inadequate I was. Now that I love myself, I only think about myself when I do so on purpose, to set goals, or to appreciate myself or my accomplishments. It’s probably 1/100th of the amount I used to think about myself.
THOUGHT ERROR #2:
It’s selfish or self-indulgent to spend time or energy or money thinking and talking about myself when that only benefits me.
Again—so common, so wrong.
When you’re self-loathing and self-focused, you know what you’re not focused on? Other people.
Think about something in your life—your job or family. When you’re obsessively thinking about whether you’re as good a doctor as your colleagues, are you bringing a lot of value to your patients? When you’re obsessively thinking about how you’re a terrible mom, are you able to show up and be present with your kids? NOPE.
Investing time, effort, and resources into managing your mind is the best thing you can do for anyone else who shares your life. How would you relate to others if you had confidence and compassion instead of insecurity? Do you think it might benefit and improve the lives of the people around you?
Investing in improving your mental and emotional health is the opposite of frivolous. It’s literally the most important thing you can spend money on, and it impacts EVERYONE in your life positively.
THOUGHT ERROR #3:
If I like myself, I’ll just get lazy and never accomplish anything.
So many women believe they are secretly lazy—that it’s only their internal mean girl that keeps them motivated and off the couch—but it’s the exact opposite. You feel “lazy” because you are emotionally exhausted, and you’re emotionally exhausted because you’re criticizing yourself all day long inside your own head.
If you stop yelling at yourself, you’re going to have more energy to do the things that matter to you, and you’re going to learn how to stop forcing yourself to do things. Most of you think you’ve achieved what you’ve achieved because of your high stress and anxiety, but what if you’ve achieved all of that despite your anxiety and stress?
Think about anxiety and stress like coal—you can burn it, and it will keep you moving for a while, but eventually, if you keep burning it, you’re going to choke to death. If you want to create renewable, sustainable energy that isn’t toxic, you must change your fuel.
Self-love, self-acceptance, and self-esteem are what lead to exponential growth, achievement, and contribution. That’s what thought work can create for you. It can have such a huge impact/outcome, and it all starts in your own little brain.
