Balanced self-love is a commitment to your personal happiness and well-being through self-compassion, acceptance, and kindness.
Love is a universal experience that exists in various forms. You can love your family, spouse, or pets. All of these loving relationships come with different dimensions of trust, affection, security, and support.
Loving others is often easier than loving yourself. We tend to be our own worst critics, treating ourselves worse than we would ever treat those closest to us.
Learning to build your self-love doesn’t mean growing arrogance or self-centeredness. It means learning to treat yourself with the same care and respect you show for your loved ones.
Self-love is a concept in positive psychology that promotes well-being. As an intangible experience, its definition varies across literature, but it’s generally defined as a multidimensional state of balancing focus on yourself with:
- kindness
- acceptance
- support
- nurturance
Self-love is love, just directed inward.
One
- self-cherishing
- self-acceptance
- self-restraint
- self-responsibility
- self-persistence
According to the study authors, these components appear in your life across four dimensions: self, family, others, and society.
In other words, when you show self-love, it affects more than just you — it impacts how you engage with the world around you.
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In that analysis, self-love was found to be a significant predictor of flourishing and pro-social behavior.
Self-love isn’t a concrete construct. It can look different for everyone but typically involves thoughts and behaviors that promote a compassionate relationship with yourself.
Signs of self-love can include:
- setting and upholding personal boundaries
- using positive self-talk and not harsh criticism
- being kind and forgiving to yourself if you make a mistake or feel inadequate
- treating yourself with empathy as you would a friend experiencing the same challenge
- participating in activities that promote your mental and physical well-being
- valuing yourself enough to pursue new goals or learn new skills
- accepting your strengths and weaknesses to let go of unreasonable expectations
- considering yourself rather than always putting others first
- celebrating or acknowledging your achievements
- feeling comfortable to live by your personal beliefs and values rather than conform to external standards
The key to self-love is finding balance. You don’t have to always put yourself first, for example, but you should consider your mental and physical well-being when making decisions. Or, you don’t have to always celebrate your accomplishments publicly, but be proud of yourself privately.
A growing body of research suggests that self-love and many of its components, like self-compassion and self-connectedness, are important to human resilience and well-being.
Self-love is a powerful psychological tool for building a greater sense of self-worth and confidence and for increasing overall life satisfaction. It may also help improve symptoms of mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and stress. Its benefits can also extend to physical health.
When you practice self-love,
Self-love can also help shape how you view and interact with the world around you. When you’re able to be kind, forgiving, and compassionate to yourself, those qualities are easily translated into your interpersonal relationships and engagement with society.
It’s OK if you find self-love difficult. Many people do and for many different reasons. Self-love is something you can build, and you can do it one step at a time by focusing on a particular goal, such as:
- learning to set and maintain personal boundaries
- developing effective communication skills
- making a habit of asking yourself if you would treat a friend as you’re treating yourself
- challenging negative self-talk
- planning and sticking to a self-care routine
- keeping a self-love journal to celebrate your accomplishments or positive experiences from each day
- making time for activities that bring you joy
- using guided meditations to build self-forgiveness and acceptance
- surrounding yourself with positive support networks and influences
- keeping a journal to reflect and explore your thoughts
Mindfulness is a tool that might help you on your self-love journey no matter which goal you’re focusing on. It’s a state of in-the-moment awareness in which you focus on what’s happening “now” and not fixate on things that happened or could happen.
Mindfulness teaches you how to view your thoughts and experiences without judgment.
You can learn about mindfulness on your own through books or other media, or you can learn from a professional trained in mindfulness.
If you’re not sure where to start your self-love journey, working with a mental health professional can help you discover areas where you may need to build self-love and ways to accomplish it.
Self-love is a positive psychology concept that focuses on treating yourself with the same empathetic love and kindness you would someone close to you. It’s a balanced approach to considering your personal needs and treating yourself with compassion.
Learning to set and maintain boundaries, boosting your communication skills, and setting a self-care routine are all steps toward improving self-love. Working closely with a mental health professional can also support your journey.