Dating Advice

We always think loving our partners is the most important criteria to maintain a relationship. However, most people fail to love themselves. If you do not even know how to love yourself, how can you expect other people how to love you? But what does loving yourself really mean? Read on and you will know how to love yourself.

• Write a list of good and bad qualities about yourself.
  We focus too much on other people’s qualities and fail to look at ours. So, take some time to write down your good qualities that you can be proud of such as physical attributes, mental or emotional strengths, successes you have experienced and the way you support your friends. Then write down your bad qualities. Most of us can only see and feel upset about other people’s bad qualities. Actually, we have our own bad qualities too. These bad qualities could be being late in a meeting and get mad easily. So, write them down to remind yourself to correct them. Make these lists as long as possible, and then keep adding to it. Once you correct your bad qualities, remove them from your list.
• Ask people around you to add good and bad qualities in your list.
  Go to the people around you and ask them what they think about your good and bad qualities. You will be surprised to find out that they can see a lot more of your strengths and weaknesses than you.
• Find out what you need.
  Most people do not really know what they need. They can go through their lives living only for others without thinking What they want and What the best is for them. The best way to love yourself is to pay attention to what you want and need in your job, relationships, friendships and whole life.
• Treat yourself like your best friends.
  You support, respect and care about your best friends. Just do the same for yourself. For example, you would challenge them when they are making bad decisions with their lives, challenge yourself too. Also, remind yourself of your immense worth as a person and that you deserve great things in your life. Furthermore, challenge yourself to do the best possible in your life.
• Take good care of your body.
  Eat as healthy as and exercise as much as possible. Take good care of yourself physically is one way to show yourself love. By treating our bodies well, we send ourselves the message that we deserve good things.
• Take good care of your spirit.
  Slow down after work and take the time to pray, meditate, connect with others and/or read meaningful books. These will nourish our love for ourselves and enrich our lives in many ways.
• Protect yourself from being taken advantage of.
  When you know how to love yourself, you are not willing to let someone take advantage of you. Do not be the kind of person who can tolerate anything in a relationship only because you desperately want to be loved. You are worth more than that. Protect yourself from people who do not have your best interest at heart and choose not to allow yourself to be treated in unloving and disrespectful ways.
• Forgive yourself when you make mistakes.
  We are human and all of us make mistakes. So, we cannot expect perfection all the time. When you make mistakes or find out something about yourself that you do not like, do not judge or harshly criticize yourself. Instead, be compassionate and remind yourself that you have already done your best.

Please note that loving yourself is not selfish. The more loving you are to yourself, the more love you can send out to other people in your life such as your family, your friends and the one you date. This fact is similar to how our hearts work - our hearts pump blood to themselves first before sending blood out to the rest of our bodies. So, from now on, love yourself more fully day after day.