If you rely on someone else to bring love into your life, you’re giving them too much power. In a world where ghosting, cheating, and heartbreak are so common, you can’t leave something as important as a sense of love up to someone else. It’s great if someone else does bring love into your life, but you also have to be able to show yourself this love. Here are 8 ways to give yourself the love you crave from guys.
- Question your self-damaging thoughts. Negative thoughts can stop you from loving yourself the way you deserve to be loved. Sadly, it’s difficult to stop thoughts from appearing in your mind. You might not be able to control those thoughts, but you can question them. Rather than accepting them blindly, try to analyze the negative thoughts you have about yourself. Ask yourself if they’re really true. Are you really not good enough? What evidence do you have to support that thought? If you question your thoughts like this, you’ll find that they lose their impact and you’ll stop buying into them.
- Commit to only speaking positively about yourself. You have a lot more control over what you say than what you think. You might never be able to stop thinking negative thoughts about yourself, no matter how much you stop buying into them. But you can stop talking negatively about yourself right now! Negative self-talk reinforces negative feelings towards yourself, which is the opposite of self-love. If you wouldn’t say it about someone you love, don’t say it about yourself. Why? Because any guy that loves you wouldn’t say it either.
- Remind yourself why you’re great. To reinforce feelings of self-love, remind yourself why you’re great. Now, you’re actually enough as you are, without achieving anything impressive. But if you go over a list of reasons why you’re amazing, it’s easier to show and feel love for yourself. Put everything that comes to mind on your list. You’re great because you’re a good friend. Or because you bake delicious cakes. Or you can make people laugh. Appreciate these positive traits in yourself the way you’d expect a guy to.
- Spoil yourself. Contrary to popular belief, you actually don’t need to be dating anyone to be spoiled. You can spoil yourself right now. And the good news is spoiling yourself will probably reinforce the notion that you’re deserving of love. So it will help those feelings to start to flow more naturally. Take yourself out to dinner. Buy yourself some nice jewelry. Don’t wait for someone else to come along and do those things for you when they’re available to you now.
- Support yourself on social media. Social media might have started out as a bit of fun, but now it’s central to many areas of life. Support on platforms like Instagram and Facebook can make all the difference when it comes to your career and other important things. Show yourself love by supporting yourself on social media. Promote your own posts. While it’s been said that liking your own posts is like giving yourself a high-five, others would say this is the ultimate act of self-love.
- Repeat positive affirmations. Positive affirmations can be very effective in building self-love. Basically, repeating things that you’d like to believe in, like, “I’m powerful,” can actually make you believe in them. Find some affirmations that resonate with you, or write your own. Commit to repeating them every day until you start to believe in them. Choose affirmations that will improve your sense of self-worth and encourage you to love yourself.
- Back yourself up when you need it. When you’re in a loving relationship with someone, that person is likely to defend you against opposition and attacks. You can show yourself the same kind of love by backing yourself up when you need it. That goes for when people insult or disrespect you, or when they take advantage of you. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. This will show both you and the world that you are worthy of respect and you love yourself enough to demand it.
- Do things alone. Surprisingly, doing things alone can be a powerful way to give yourself the love that you crave. The more you do things alone, whether it’s traveling, eating at restaurants, or going to the movies, the more comfortable you become being by yourself. And the more comfortable you are by yourself, the less reliant you’ll be on other people to give you access to life’s joys, like traveling and eating at restaurants. This kind of independence can be a huge self-esteem booster! Plus, as you spend time with yourself, you’ll come to realize that you’re pretty awesome.
