Since we were little we have not been taught to understand and manage our emotions, to live life to the fullest, to be… happy.

We live in a world where we are used to leaving our true selves indoors, hidden. We live in a world surrounded by social media and the standards of beauty they bring with them. We live surrounded by Snapchat and Instagram filters that make our faces thinner, smoother, prettier…

We have let fear control our lives: fear of not achieving our goals, fear of not being accepted by our family, our friends, and society, fear of being happy, fear of opening up to other people, fear of success, fear of failure…

And with fear comes insecurity. We have lost ourselves along the way, we have been hiding and leaving pieces of ourselves behind to fit into the social mold and the mold we have created for ourselves.

And the result is a life full of unhappiness, of resentment to ourselves for not overcoming our fears, for not being able to stand up for ourselves and the life we want.

So congratulations if you have made the decision to stop letting fear and insecurity control your life! And to help you with your self-love and self-discovery journey, I´ve put together a list of 5 extremely useful tips to help become you who were born to be and give yourself the life you have always wanted.

This is the beginning of loving yourself, welcome home

Growth is NOT linear

Before we begin I want to share with you a very important lesson that you NEED to know before you begin your self-love journey, and that is: GROWTH IS NOT LINEAR.

With any objective that you set for yourself (fitness-like, self-love-like, dream-like…), you need to know that you will not advance towards your objective in a straight line.

Sometimes we have drawbacks, sometimes we go two steps forward and three steps back. And that is completely okay. Loving yourself is a long-term journey and one that never ends. You are not running a spring, you are running a marathon.

We are not always going to feel confident on our skins or with the words we want to speak. We are not always going to look in the mirror and see a beautiful and amazing person reflected on it.

Somedays we will feel loved and confident, but other days we will need to remind ourselves of our potential, our beauty, our intelligence, our abilities, our strength…

Fake it ´till you make. How to become the best version of yourself.

As we learned earlier, you are not going to love and be confident in yourself every day in the same measure. Sometimes you feel it and sometimes you have to fake it, especially at the beginning.

I am sure you´ve heard more than once the phrase “Fake it ´till you make it”. Does it really work? And how can you become the best version of yourself by faking it?

Well, there is a fairly easy technique you can start using TODAY.

And the technique is this one: every time you have to do something that you know you should, but that you don’t want to or that you are afraid to do, ask yourself what would the highest version of myself do? And then you do it, feelings apart.

Try doing this every time you have a choice to make, but you don’t know what to do or in any uncertain situation that you find yourself in. It may not seem like a big thing, but little by little, decision by decision it has its effect because it allows you to grow, it allows you to take the habit of acting like your highest self and in the end becoming her/him.

Discipline. The secret ingredient to properly love yourself.

Although there is a lot of information and advice on self-love, I think we still don’t fully understand the concept.

One of our mistakes in treating ourselves with love and understanding, and which in the end is causing more harm than good, is forgetting about self-responsibility and self-respect. Many of us have started to take the “easy way”, to conform under the excuse of “SELF LOVE”.

Let me give you an example to understand this. How many times have you said something like this to yourself: “I’m going to skip today’s workout because I don’t feel like doing it…”, “I’m going to eat that last piece of brownie, even though I’m already full” or “I’m going to buy that dress, even though I know I could use the money for something more important”.

This is NOT self-love, this is not treating yourself and doing what is best for you. This habit is slowly making you settle for an inferior version of yourself.

We have misunderstood the concept of self-love.

It is not always about doing what you want, it is about doing what you need to do. It is about having self-discipline because it is the strongest form of self-love, it is about ignoring current desire for future reward, about doing the things you sometimes don’t want to do, to allow yourself to grow and become a better person. It’s about loving yourself enough to give yourself everything you’ve ever wanted.

I want to share a very important thing with you. Are you ready?

Your worst enemy is not fear, or insecurity, or envy…Your worst enemy is YOU.

The things that we are the most afraid of doing, are in the end the things that stop us from being the highest version of ourselves. In the end, the thing that is stopping you from being the best you is yourself.

So how can we know when we should be disciplined with ourselves and when we should be understanding?

First of all, ask yourself why you want to do what you desire to do. And then think about the consequences this will have in your life. Will this in any way affect your journey towards your goals and dreams?

If the answer to the second question is yes, you should seriously reconsider succumbing to what you want to do. Remember, sometimes self-love is about ignoring your current desire for a future and more fulfilling reward.

Paying attention to the way you talk to yourself

There is a very easy way to see how we feel about ourselves and that is by noticing the way we speak to ourselves.

Now my question to you is would you be friends with someone who spoke to you the way you speak to yourself?

If the answer is no, then it´s time to change that. Someone once said that the truth is that we are born alone and die alone. During our life, there are some people that accompany us, but our person is the only certain companion that we have.

It is so important to love who we are, no matter the mistakes, the failures, the disappointments… You only have yourself and you should take care of the beautiful person you are, starting with the way you speak to yourself.

Include positive influences in your life

Humans are social creatures. And whether we like it or not we are influenced and affected by the actions of the people around us, negative or positive. We are discouraged, motivated, angered, inspired, insecure…

Using how others people’s actions and personalities influence us to motivate ourselves is a powerful tool.

By this, I mean that you should surround yourself in all the ways possible with people who motivate and inspire you. People that you look up to because they have the life that you dream of, the lifestyle, the body, the personality…

I encourage you to look for people that influence you in a positive way, especially on the internet. Social media platforms are places we spend most of our day in, youtube, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter… They have an enormous impact on the way we see and feel about ourselves.

The great thing about social media is that we can follow people from all across the world, no matter where we are. So your mission this week is to look for people you look up to and admire and surround yourself with those people- follow them on Instagram, youtube, Facebook…

You have an incredibly powerful tool in your hands and it would be foolish not to use it when it can help you become the person you have always been meant to be.

Reconsidering the importance of others people’s opinions.

At 18, you care about what others think of you.

At 40, you don’t care what others think of you.

At 60, you realize that no one has ever thought about you.

-Daniel Amen. The 18/40/60 rule

We live with fear ever since the start of humanity. They are different depending on the individual, and they have evolved along with society. But the fear is still there. And that’s perfectly normal. Fear is a normal reaction of our brain when exploring something unknown when doing something that could put in danger our position in the society we live in (fear of rejection).

What is not normal and something that we have made a habit of is listening to our fears and letting them control who we are.

Now we live in a society where confronting your fears is something bizarre, because obviously, it’s easier to stay in our comfort zone. But the memories that we will remember more, the most valuable lessons we could ever learn are outside our comfort zone. The goal is not fearing anything, the goal is feeling that fear and still doing what we are afraid of.

What the hell matters what you do in the eyes of society? One day you are going to die, so tell that boy you like him, go bungee jumping, be your weird; messy and imperfect self; wear those jeans that you like so much, but you’re afraid of what people may tell. And, hey maybe people will tell you something, but does their opinion really matter? Are you going to let other people control your happiness?

As someone very wise once said: “People can live a hundred years without living for a minute”.

If you want to learn more about fear and how to overcome it, click here!

Final Message

Before we say goodbye I what to share with you something. In the end, we are the only thing we need to have a great life and achieve our dreams. WE are the only ones that have the power to do that; or to, on the contrary, limit ourselves from achieving greatness. And once we’ve understood the power of that truth is when we will really start working towards our dreams and goals.

I am proud of you for getting this far. I hope all the techniques and tips in this article will help you at least half as much as they helped me.