Why self love should be top of your to do list

Keturah Charlesworth Author

Want to know 8 awesome reasons why self-love should be at the top of your 'things I should master' list?

This episode of the Coach Gone Rogue podcast is packed with some really great reasons why loving yourself should be the main course in your self-growth feast.

And if you’re ready to get start growing some self-loving skills today, then why not grab your copy of my FREE 'Love Yourself First' workbook here:

https://www.coachgonerogue.com/f/love-yourself-first-free-workbook

Tune in and follow the Coach Gone Rogue podcast here:

Episode transcription:

Why should self-love be anywhere near the top of your to-do list? What exactly is it, and why should you be investing any time or attention in getting more self-love in your life?

Self-love is like that step up from self-awareness. You can be fully aware of who you are and how you tick, and still not be overly keen on it. Self-love is self-awareness with a sense of joy, compassion, care, and excitement about truly owning who you are. It’s about dimming down the negative voices that quite often pop up in our heads—not eradicating them (which isn’t necessarily possible)—but focusing on self-love, compassion, gratitude, and care for ourselves. This approach influences how we live our lives, how we treat ourselves, our feelings, our emotions, and our goals. Essentially, our level of self-love is pretty much on par with our level of self-worth, and it sets the limits to our success.

I want you to imagine that all the things you're hoping to have more of in your life are represented in different buckets: a love bucket, a success bucket, a happiness bucket. The idea is not only to fill all of these buckets but to overflow them. You want them to be full and overflowing with whatever it is you want to top them up with. Now, imagine your self-love bucket and trying to fill it up and overflow it. But every time you have a limiting belief, doubt your own worth, engage in negative self-talk, or partake in behaviours that undermine the love you have for yourself, you’re punching a hole in that bucket. This means that however much love you continue to pour in, it’s all leaking out through these holes created by your lack of self-worth, your doubts, negative thoughts, or actions that prove to yourself that you’re not putting yourself first, that you don't prioritise yourself.

It ends up being impossible to fill your bucket, let alone overflow it with all of these things going on. So, working towards self-love is as much about understanding where the love for yourself is leaking out as it is about what you’re pouring in. We know how to love ourselves; quite often, it’s unlearning the things that do the opposite that’s the real trick.

There’s a two-pronged approach: not only filling yourself with self-love and doing things for yourself, speaking to yourself in a positive way that comes from a place of believing you’re brilliant, awesome, strong, courageous, and the best, but also understanding where your challenges lie—why it's hard and learning the skills and practices needed to overcome limiting beliefs, negative self-talk, or behaviours that are continually putting holes in your self-love bucket.

But why is that a worthwhile pursuit? Why should you bother doing either of these things—filling up your self-love bucket or trying to plug the holes that you might be inadvertently poking in it?

What’s the benefit of actually putting in the work?

The first thing really comes down to health. Our physical, mental, and emotional health all benefit when we love ourselves. When we love ourselves and are compassionate and caring towards ourselves, we naturally prioritise the things that are good for us. We naturally seek out and undertake the things that will support us in the best possible way, that will make us feel great, and that will keep us healthy. This works not only on a physical level—the choices we make every day to keep ourselves physically healthy—but also when we work on reducing negative or limiting beliefs, especially when we reduce negative thoughts and self-talk. The potential benefit this has for your mental and emotional well-being is huge. It can boost your mood, reduce stress, and has a massive roll-on effect for your overall health.

Self-love also has an amazing boost on your confidence. As you can imagine, when you love yourself more, when you think you're amazing, it naturally boosts your confidence. You feel worthy and approach different circumstances, relationships, and conversations with confidence. Not only is this great for outward communication and how you project yourself to the world, but also an internal confidence that allows you to know within yourself that you’ve got what it takes to go out and get what you want.

When you're out there going after your goals, knowing your boundaries and limits is crucial, and that’s another benefit of having a strong sense of love for yourself. It aligns with self-awareness—knowing where you begin and end, what's comfortable and safe for you, whether physically, emotionally, or mentally, is incredibly important. When you know and love yourself, it means you will more readily do what needs to be done to preserve and protect those limits and boundaries. You’ll know yourself well enough to recognise when those limits are being approached, tested, stretched, or completely overstepped. Then, your self-love gives you the confidence and ability to stand your ground, to be comfortable, and to respect and protect those limits.

Part of that comes from courage, which self-love can provide. It gives us the courage to back ourselves, to know we can face hard things, to know we have the resources, strengths, abilities, and support to nourish ourselves through challenges. But it also helps us know when courage or bravery should be pursued and when to respect the sense of fear and manage our bravery against risks that could put us in harm’s way.

When we love ourselves, we have our own backs. We can face the world with courage, go for what we want, be passionate, forthright, and put ourselves out there. This ties back to the confidence we've spoken about but also to personal safety and knowing our limits. We can be confident in pushing ourselves and being courageous within our limitations because we know where we begin and end.

With that courage, we are much more inclined towards growth, productivity, and achieving our goals. Loving ourselves means being open to reflection, learning, and personal development. It allows us to be confident, curious, and aware that we’re always evolving and changing. Our health, personal growth, confidence, courage, and personal safety and boundaries all contribute to allowing us to grow even more—more love, more compassion, more support for ourselves and our goals.

Self-love also has an unbelievable effect on our relationships with others. When we love ourselves fully, we open ourselves up to the potential to give and receive love more authentically with others. Returning to the bucket analogy, this applies to love from other people as well. If you have a love bucket and other people are trying to pour love into it, but you've poked lots of holes in it because you don't love yourself, the likelihood of your love bucket being filled up or overflowing by others is limited. By loving yourself and working on loving yourself more, you allow yourself to experience love from others in a completely different way—without constraints, self-doubt, or questioning intentions or the depth of others' feelings. It enables you to have deeper, more vulnerable conversations and to strengthen and build awesome connections with others.

It goes without saying that with all of the things I’ve mentioned, self-love leads to more happiness and fulfilment. This is a natural cause and effect of loving yourself more. When you have better health, when you take better care of yourself naturally because you prioritise you, when you have more confidence, when you understand your limits and strengths, when you approach life with courage, grow, develop, and experience new things, and when you have awesome relationships with others, it stands to reason that you would feel happier and more fulfilled in your life.

So, this benefit is probably a no-brainer, but it’s not to be ignored as a really integral and positive outcome of loving yourself and prioritising self-love.

Finally, authenticity. When you love yourself completely, it empowers you to live an authentic life, to live your life your way with zero apologies. It's about loving yourself unconditionally and unapologetically. It’s about knowing yourself deeply and loving who you are, which allows you to express yourself authentically. This, in turn, boosts your confidence, courage, and the relationships and connections you maintain with others. Your authentic self is the end result of prioritising self-love.

I hope you can see that self-love goes beyond just saying some nice things to yourself in the mirror every morning. It’s really an extra layer that can be added to your self-awareness that goes beyond just knowing who you truly are—it’s about truly loving yourself for everything you stand for. It’s about being authentic, being you, and it's an incredibly beneficial and empowering thing to pursue. It’s the foundation of a happy, healthy, and amazing life.

If you’re keen on injecting a little extra self-love into your life, why not download my free workbook, Love Yourself First? It will give you three things you can do today to start boosting your self-love. There’s a link in the episode description, so grab yourself a copy, and I’ll see you in the next episode of Coach Gone Rogue.

Categories: : Podcast