10 Habits That Manifest Self Love & Self Care

Self-love and self-care are key elements that should be a part of your routine to have a healthy mindset and good mental health. The amount of awareness around self-love is increasing as more people have a willingness to learn about how our minds work and the importance it has on our physical and mental health.

This wonderful post is a guest post from Bournemouth Girl. Lauren also previously guest posted for me about 5 Tips For When You Receive A Fibromyalgia Diagnosis, which I’d highly recommend checking out, too!

Journal

Journaling is such a powerful and effective habit that cannot only promote good mental health, but helps you to focus on your self-care and showing yourself love. Journaling with the use of positive affirmations can help you seek kind and loving things to say about yourself and allows time for self-reflection can you can note all of your strengths, you will surprise yourself!

Stress is a big cause of poor mental health and can cause you to have physical health problems as well. Journaling your feelings, worries or fears helps to confront them and you can work through them. If you are new to the practice of journaling, using journal prompts can be really beneficial. When it comes to self-care it isn’t just about your physical care.

Be around people who know your worth

The people who you surround yourself with will determine how you see and feel about yourself. You will feed off their energy and that can affect your mindset. When you are around people who know your worth, they will not only respect you, but will appreciate your time.

Taking the time to be around people, who are loving, can help with your own love because they will help you to be yourself. You will be more likely to adopt powering beliefs and more open to positive opportunities. Having positive relationships can help you cope healthily with any challenges or stresses that arise in your life.

Have good sleep hygiene

Sleep hygiene means practicing habits that help you get a better night’s sleep. Sleep is an essential part of your physical and your mental health and not having enough restorative sleep can really impact both aspects of your life. Having enough sleep allows our body to feel rested and you are more likely to approach tasks and life in general more positively.

Having a sleep routine is a huge self-care habit that can have a powerful effect on your mental health, which can then improve self-love and your self-esteem. Here are 3 tips to help you to improve the quality of your sleep:

• Create the perfect temperature in your bedroom (the use of a fan, opening a window, extra blankets, or a larger tog for your duvet)
• Come away from any form of technology an hour before bed (this helps to adjust your eyes when removing blue light and stops your mind focusing on those notifications!)
• Have a warm bath or shower before bed (this can help you to relax, release tension in your muscles and joints)

Respect your body

When I talk about respecting your body, I mean what you eat, drink and do to your body.

Creating a healthy and balanced diet and scheduling in regular exercise is helping you to respect and nourish your body. Your body is something that you should tune in and listen to. When you release your happy chemical endorphins from exercising, you will lift your mood and improve your self-esteem. These benefits will help you to show yourself more love and care and become healthy habits you can continue.

Put yourself first

Making yourself a priority will automatically be you practicing self-care and manifesting self-love. I am sure you are guilty of not taking time for yourself because someone else needed you? We have all done it, but now it is time for you to schedule either daily or weekly lots where you are going to do something for yourself that looks after your wellbeing.

Making that time gives your physical and mental health the nourishment it needs to promote self-love, self-care and good self-esteem. Here are 5 powerful forms of self-care you could try:

• Journal 30 positive affirmations about yourself
• Have a day filled with all your favourite things
• Read a self-help book
• Pamper yourself
• Cook/order your favourite food one meal time

Be kind to yourself

Showing kindness starts with yourself, learning to be kinder to yourself can help you build your self-esteem and you will learn to love yourself more. Speaking kindly to and about yourself is a valuable self-care activity.

If like me you have a bad habit of talking down to yourself or about yourself this habit is one to really consider working on.

When you discredit and speak badly about yourself in front of others, you are outing it out there that it is acceptable to treat you that way as well. Raise your self-esteem and you will notice your change in attitude and confidence for what you expect from the people in your life.

5 ways to be kind to yourself:

• Use affirmations in your journal
• Schedule time for yourself to do something that brings you joy
• Practice gratitude
• Practice mindfulness
• Meditate

Challenge negative behaviours

Negative behaviours can come in the forms of toxic habits that are stopping you being happy and positive. In order to improve your self-love and your confidence, you need to reduce or eliminate these negative habits and practices.

Removing the negativity from your life and your daily habits in itself is an invaluable self-care activity that manifests self-love. Here are 6 ways you can challenge your negative behaviour and habits:

• Write down our bad habits that will help you tom identify what you would like to change.
• Focus and work out why you want to change
• Leave yourself reminders in your phone, in your dairy or even on your bathroom mirror
• Work on one bad habit or practice at a time, so you do not feel overwhelmed
• Set a certain start date for motivation and structure
• Practice mindfulness – to change your mental health and mindset

Reducing your bad habits and replacing them with positive and empowering habits will help you to manifest self-care and love and have the right mindset to regularly work on your self-care.

Stop comparing yourself to others

Comparison is a happiness robber. We can all be guilty of this, but it can make you feel bad about yourself rather than motivate you. So, when you feel bad, it lowers your mood and then you are far less likely to look after yourself and love yourself.

What you need to remember is what is online is a snippet of another person’s life. Do not compare your struggles to someone’s highlight reel. Highlighting your strength is a great way to bring your focus back to you and your growth. When you stop looking at what others are doing, your focus is on yourself and what you need to do to grow and succeed. You are then far more likely to take care of yourself and then feel better about yourself which means loving yourself.

Allow yourself to make mistakes

We all make mistakes; it is a part of life. Without making mistakes you cannot learn and grow. However, in a world where many people are trying to be perfect, this can hinder your self-care and how you view yourself.

If you are like me, when you make a mistake you tend to beat yourself up and think about what went wrong rather than what went well and what you learned. Focusing on what it has taught you is a great self-care activity as it is promoting growth. Allowing yourself to make mistakes also means to give yourself grace and speak kindly to yourself when you do, to not negatively affect your motivation and confidence.

Not only does making a mistake help you learn to do things better, but it also helps to lead to a better version of yourself.

Show forgiveness

Showing forgiveness is more than just forgiving others it is about also showing forgiveness to yourself.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting what another person did to you, but it is about accepting what has happened and moving forward. Harboring all these negative feelings are toxic for your mental health and how you feel about yourself. Learning to forgive yourself has the same impact and practicing this habit will increase your self-care because you will be speaking kindly to yourself to make mistakes and acknowledging that you can forgive and move on.

It will bring you positivity, self-love and more. Here are 5 ways to help you forgive yourself:

• Acknowledge the mistake you made out loud
• Have a conversation with your inner critic (journaling can help you understand your inner critic and will improve your self-compassion)
• Identify when you are being self-critical
• Practice kindness

Will you be taking any of these tips on board? Which of these 10 things do you need to work on the most right now? Let us know in the comments!

Check out some more of my recent guest posts here:

• 10 Healthy Habits To Reduce Stress & Tiredness
• When Is It Important To Say No
• Staying Positive In Lockdown (As An Amputee With A Heart Condition)