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Mentality Behind Self Love 

The art of loving yourself doesn’t come easy. I spent many years and experiences trying to figure out my own mind and why I wasn’t seeing the progress in myself that I wanted to see, but the truth is self love is more than confidence and composure. Self love is finding what you love, working towards goals you set for yourself, and not allowing other people to get in the way of the process. I have spent years reflecting on my own mind and experiences I have gone through and have finally mastered what self love truly is. If I could go back and make the process of finding how to love myself better I would go about it with these simple steps. 

Self Love is Setting Goals For Yourself 

I think the first step to truly loving and working on yourself is to find what you enjoy and truly love. 

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when searching for what you truly love:

• What do I do in my free time?
• What are hobbies that make me happy?
• What are your values?
• What are you passionate about?
• If you had a whole day to do anything without any limits, what would you do?

After finding what you enjoy doing, find how it aligns with your future with what you see yourself doing in the years to come and make that an end goal. Now that you have established what you want to accomplish in life, set forth goals in the process that build up to your desired result. These goals along the way are not something that should be procrastinated. You have one life and you may miss out on opportunities if you do not take them as they are presented to you. You will not be successful if you do not put yourself out there.

Self Love Is the Relationships You Surround Yourself With

Believe it or not your daily relationships have a huge impact on you as a person. If you hang out with someone enough you can start to become similar people. 

Evaluate who is in your day to day life and ask yourself these questions about each individual that came to mind:

• Would they encourage me to follow my goals?
• Do they correct me when I am wrong? 
• Are they honest with me?
• Do they listen to me?
• Are they emotionally mature?
• Do they show genuine interest in my life?
• Do they love that I work towards what I love?
• Are we able to talk together and establish things that each other can work on to make each other better people?

If you have a genuine friendship, you should have answered each of these questions with yes. Genuine friendships are encouraging. They strive to make you a better individual and push you to do more for yourself. If you answered no to any of these questions, I would advise you to talk about any question you answered no to with the person it applied to. Communication is the basis of all relationships and anything can be easily fixed with simple conversation. 

In Conclusion

Overall the mental part of self love is the hardest because it all comes down to knowing what you want for yourself, how you are going to go about it, and what you do and do not tolerate with the friendships that will be encouraging you in the process.

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Discipline is Essential

Believe it or not, discipline is where self love begins. Growing up when my parents would ground me they would always say “We do this because we love you.” As you can imagine, I didn’t believe a word they said, but as I have grown up and learned more about myself

 Working out

I believe outside of the goals of working towards what you love to do, I find working on my physical appearance to be a huge step in my self love journey. If I look my best I feel my best and working out has helped my confidence a lot. Working out is something that requires an abundance of self discipline. Many people will say that they are going to start working out and then fall off after a couple of weeks or even just a few days. 

Below you will find a list of tips to prolong your physical fitness journey:

• Plan out what you are going to do before you get in the gym

Watch videos of fitness influences and find what you want to work on and what workouts you would be comfortable doing. Having a set plan makes you avoid time walking around the gym clueless.

• Be confident!

What many do not realize is everyone goes to the gym to work on something, it is nothing to be ashamed of. Walk in with confidence and you’ll find working out to be much more enjoyable.

• Give yourself rest.

Don’t over work yourself. It is okay to have off days, your body needs it. I give myself one day a week to let my body recover and the next day I start training again. 

• Stay consistent!

When you think you can’t, YOU CAN! Consistency is needed if you want to see the results you work for. Making excuses for yourself is easy, but this is where discipline comes into play. If you are thinking about giving yourself a prolonged break, remember what you have been working for and the reason you started. Consistency is KEY.

Healthy Eating

Along with physical appearance I have found that healthy eating is something that I wanted to focus on in my self-love journey. After changing my diet I have noticed a boost in energy, clearer skin, and just feeling better all around. Focus on primarily drinking water and a lot of it! Water is so good for you and you can never have enough of it. Many do not know the amount of sugar and calories that are found in sweet drinks. Some drinks have the equivalent effect on your body as a meal would have.

I have included more fruits and vegetables in my diet and have cut down on my bread intake. Eating healthy does not mean you are eating food that is less desirable. There are a bunch of great healthy food recipes you can find on the internet. I personally found a lot through searching food prep recipes on Pinterest and I use them nearly everyday. Experiment, find what you like, and make a food prepping schedule.  You will find yourself feeling less guilty about the food you consume and you will be able to feel the difference in your everyday life.