Self-love: reasons to cultivate it, and how to do it in 5 steps

Self-love is a very important ingredient to enjoy psychological well-being. Whatever is done, if we do not value it, it will have no meaning or contribute to making us feel good about who we are.

However, self-love is something that is normally viewed in a very distorted way, as most people think of it as the result. to reach certain vital goals that supposedly we all share: to be popular, to have a certain purchasing power, to have the ability to be attractive, etc. This is an illusion, as we will see.

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Why is self-love important?

Self-love, associated with self-esteem, is something that leads all the positive emotional charge linked to our self-concept. Let's say that on the one hand we have information about who we are and what we have done in what we have been life, and on the other we have the emotions associated with that kind of autobiography and that concept of the Self.

Self-love can be so important that it will lead us to radically change our short, medium and long term if we feel that what we have been doing for a long time, even if we do it well, does not speak well about who are. That is why it is necessary to stop to listen to it and to regulate well the emotions that mediate it when providing us with “glasses” with which we judge ourselves.

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How to increase self-love: 5 tips

First of all, keep in mind that self-love is not something that is cultivated simply with introspection and reflection. This psychological aspect is part of the emotional dimension of the human being, which goes beyond our ability to use logic, to reason. While the power of reason can help, it is not by itself enough to work on self-esteem. This can already be seen in the first tip of the series that we will review below.

1. Rate your reference group

Self-esteem always depends on what our reference group is. If we take for granted that normality is, for example, to fit in with an elite group of Harvard students, in case of not reaching the academic goals that others do reach will make a dent in our self-esteem, since in that social circle this is something highly valued, especially because of its character competitive.

However, having exactly the same abilities and personality, we could have a very good self-esteem in another richer and more heterogeneous social environment. The key is that our way of socializing, and the spaces we choose to socialize, create the frame of reference from which we begin to assess our own competencies. Regardless of whether we do the latter in a rational way or not, the former is something beyond reason.

So, first of all, assess if your frame of reference is adequate or if it creates expectations that are not realistic. It is not about raising or lowering the level; It is also about stopping to think if those personal traits in which people in these social environments look to attribute value are something that really has meaning to us. For example, in the case of Harvard students, the grades obtained can matter a lot, but this criterion may not be worth nothing in another social circle in which the main thing is creativity and even social skills and a sense of humor.

In short, self-love is greatly influenced by the reference group and the way we would be valued according to their criteria, but we can also assess whether that reference group satisfies us or not.

2. Stay away from eternally negative people

There are people whose strategy for socializing consists of making make other people feel bad about themselves. It may sound like something that doesn't make sense, but it actually does, if certain conditions are met. If a relational dynamic is created in which the person is receiving constant criticism from others, the idea is created that the one he criticizes has a lot of value in being able to "see" those imperfections in others, and that therefore staying by their side is a way of gaining value in the eyes of others. the rest.

These types of social ties, of course, act as a mortgage for self-esteem; you are constantly getting free and unnecessary reviews simply out of habit, and in return you get a supposed advantage if it only works as long as you stay close to the other person.

Ending these types of relationships, either by physically distancing ourselves from the person or facilitating their change, is necessary so that self-esteem does not continue to wear out.

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3. Assess their strengths and weaknesses

Having literally pointed out those characteristics of ours that we interpret as imperfections and those that we believe are positive, helps us to have a reference about what our initial state is.

Thanks to this, it will be easier to detect those moments in which our emotional state of the present is further distorting our self-concept, which is already somewhat mobile and arbitrary.

For example, if we believe that our ability to listen and have deep conversations is good, but something happens that makes us feel bad and we come to see this also as an imperfection, we will have reason to think that it is not a correct conclusion. And if something happens that leads us to think about a characteristic that appears as an imperfection in that registry, it will be easier to think about its limitations, in that it does not constitute the totality of who we are, since many other similar traits share the same hierarchy as her in the list of defects and strengths.

4. Learn

Self-love is also cultivated by doing something that shows us that we are progressing. If we believe that our social skills are bad and that this should not be the case, the simple fact of working on that facet of we will make us think better about ourselves, since it puts the possibility of us to verify progress.

5. Meet people

The more people you meet, the easier it will be to meet those you connect with, and that they see qualities in us that others did not see. As we have seen, one thinks of himself fundamentally from the adjectives and semantic categories that he is used to using with others. If the words and concepts that can be used to refer to our positive qualities are little used in a social circle, it is unlikely that we will notice them.