How much do you respect your interests, your body, your emotional health, or your success? How much disrespect and poor behavior are you willing to tolerate from others? If you don’t value yourself enough, your life will never be as great as it could be.
When you fail to value yourself sufficiently, you’re much more likely to suffer from depression and self-destructive behaviors. Would you smoke or stay in an abusive relationship if you valued yourself highly? One of the most effective ways to enhance your life overall is to value yourself more.
Understanding the importance of valuing yourself at a higher level:
- Treat yourself like you’re an important person. If you were raised to be a nice person, you probably treat strangers better than you treat yourself. You’re more encouraging and understanding toward your friends than you are to yourself.
At the end of the day, you’re responsible for the quality of your life. It only makes sense to treat yourself like you’re an incredibly important person, because you are.
- Avoid comparing yourself to others. Another way to value yourself is to stop comparing yourself to other people. This type of comparison is unfair, because everyone is unique. Who’s to say the other person shouldn’t be more like you instead?
- Cultivate your unique qualities. Spend time on yourself and become an even more unique individual. Spend time cultivating and growing the parts of you that are special. When you honor the parts of you that are unique, rather than attempting to hide them, you are truly valuing yourself
- Be assertive. Your needs and opinions matter. Value yourself by expressing your needs and opinions. Take control of your life, make a plan, and turn your dreams into reality. You’re not honoring yourself when you’re passive.
- Have a worthy objective. Choose a course for your life. Have a big goal that’s worthy of your time and energy. Small goals are for small people. You’re not a small person, so have worthy goals in your life.
- Take care of your body. You can’t live without your body. Give your body the care it requires. Get enough sleep. Eat healthy food. Exercise. See your doctor regularly.
- Only maintain healthy relationships. Maintaining unhealthy relationships isn’t honoring your values. If you value yourself, you’ll only have positive relationships in your life. Remove the people from your life that aren’t up to the standards someone like you deserves.
- Follow your heart. Your ambitions are valuable, because you’re valuable. Avoid allowing others to talk you out of chasing your dreams. Honor yourself by taking your desires seriously.
- Use your time wisely. Avoid meaningless distractions. Your time is far too important to not leverage intelligently. Demonstrate the value you place on your time by utilizing it with intention.
- Focus on your strengths. Let go of your weaknesses. The most successful people focus on and maximize their strengths. Put your attention where it matters. Ruminating on your weaknesses isn’t a way to value yourself.
Be your own best friend and greatest cheerleader. Give yourself the priority and concern that you deserve. As an adult, no one will ever look out for your interests as well as you can.
Wrap-Up
Sister now is the time to fall in love with yourself. Love Letters to My Girls written by over 100 Black women will inspire you to unapologetically love yourself as a Black woman. Grab your copy of the book at https://linktr.ee/healercassandra
