by The Lovely Refinement Team | Sep 17, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
Lately, I’ve been wondering how to live a more meaningful life. Wondering how I can have more control over my life. It’s something that happens as you get older.
You learn to let go of all these things you don’t want anymore. Things you maybe thought you wanted but eventually grow out of. That’s where claiming your true power comes into play.
Claiming your power is about your character and accomplishments. It’s the result of who you are and what you do. When you learn how to unlock your personal power, you can achieve your goals and lead a more meaningful life.
14 Ways to Step Into Your True Power & Live a More Meaningful Life
By harnessing that power, you will also speak up more about what you do and don’t want. You won’t feel so trapped by a life that you really don’t want.
In some ways, building up your inner power is like building up your outer body. It takes effort and practice.
Start with these exercises for cultivating inner strengths and taking positive actions.
1. Clarify your values.
Understand who you are and what’s important to you. You do this by getting to know yourself more. Don’t be afraid to do things alone and to step out of your comfort zone.
It’s too easy to have your values blocked by what you think you’re supposed to be. Instead of who you want to be.
Every day society is telling us what we should value and what we shouldn’t, but the only way to claim your true power is by ignoring all of these mixed messages.
Focus on what you value deep in your heart and what matters most to you. When you get clearer on this, your inner power will grow.
2. Practice Optimism.
The world tears us down from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep. As the day wears on, your boss may criticize you or you get stuck in traffic.
It’s easy to allow these annoyances to change your view of the world. Making you more negative towards things that shouldn’t have that much power over you.
Focus instead on what is going right in your world. Sure, you have bad days because we all do. You’re not alone in this and I’m not going to try and tell you to just pretend to be positive all the time.
But there is beauty in the way that some people turn lemons into lemonade, right? Even when shit is hitting the fan these people can throw a smile on and shake it off.
Imagine what those people would do in your shoes. Laugh off the things that won’t matter tomorrow and turn your attention towards the things you love and value in your life.
Related: How to Cleanse Your Mind of Negative Thoughts
3. Build your self-esteem.
Question your self-limiting beliefs. Have the courage to take worthwhile risks and give yourself credit for trying.
Building up your self-esteem is one of the best things you can do. When you believe in yourself, you build resilience towards anything in life.
This takes practice just like thinking more optimistically does. Most people aren’t born naturally confident, they are instead surrounded by things that build their confidence.
This means supportive people and allowing yourself room to make mistakes and take risks, without feeling like a total failure in the process.
4. Manage your emotions.
Recognize your feelings without letting them distract you from making healthy choices. Stop trying to bury emotions deep inside, pretending they don’t exist. This only makes things worse.
You won’t learn how to deal with bad things if you never express your emotions. And the only way to gain control over fear, anxiety, or depression is by shining a light on them.
Whenever you feel sad, angry, hurt, or confused, don’t be afraid to sit with yourself and dissect why you feel that way. Validate your feelings so you can manage them.
5. Let go of baggage.
Free yourself from grudges and resentments.
Forgive yourself and others for any past disappointments.
6. Persevere through obstacles.
Patiently accept reversals and delays as the price of success. Remember your purpose and renew your commitment when the going gets tough.
7. Be authentic.
Stay true to yourself. Be prepared to align your actions with your values even when it’s uncomfortable. Evaluate your progress according to your own standards instead of comparing yourself to others.
Authenticity gives you real strength.
8. Meditate and pray.
You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual. Faith and mindfulness can make you stronger and more resilient. Set aside time each day to give thanks and connect with your spiritual side.
Practice your faith by seizing opportunities to be kind and generous.
9. Engage in self-care.
Your physical condition affects your personal power. Keep your body in peak condition with a balanced diet rich in whole foods like fresh vegetables and fruits. Exercise regularly and stick to a consistent sleep schedule.
10. Continue learning.
Adding to your knowledge and abilities also makes you more powerful. Sign up for educational seminars at work or study a foreign language at your local community college.
Take courses online and read classic novels in your free time.
11. Communicate skillfully.
You can make yourself more likable and influential. Ask friends and colleagues you trust for honest feedback about areas where you need to grow.
- Brush up on your attentive listening or public speaking skills. Monitor your body language and proofread your emails.
12. Network vigorously.
A robust network gives you more opportunities to leverage your strengths by collaborating with others. Help others by sharing your time, expertise, and other resources. Stay in touch with your old contacts, and attend events where you can widen your circle.
13. Aim for balance.
It’s tempting to limit ourselves to the areas where we feel safe and appreciated. Ensure you’re giving adequate attention to both your professional and family life.
14. Maximize your productivity.
Time and other resources are limited. Organizing your routines can help you to do more with less.
Mental and spiritual strength allows you to take charge of your life and your future. Claim your true power so you can realize your potential and have a positive impact on the world around you.
by The Lovely Refinement Team | Sep 3, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
5 Simple Ways to Stay Present in Everyday Life. It can be a real struggle to remain present in the moments of everyday life.
We have so much going on at any given moment that it’s difficult to slow it all down and just be ok with what’s happening right in front of you.
But from what I’ve experienced, it’s worth it every time I decide to take a step back and pay attention to what I have at the moment.
It’s the only thing I can control, and learning how to be more present has helped me feel less anxious plus I have so much more patience for even the tiniest things.
What Does it Mean to “Be Present in the Moment?”
Do you find that you get impatient waiting in line at the self-checkout lane at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday night?
Or what about driving in traffic eager to get home so you can throw off your work clothes and open up a fresh bottle of wine?
You may always be rushing to get to the next best place in your life, but the magic of the present moment is sitting here with you right now.
In fact, there’s an entire movement or awakening in which individuals have discovered that a secret to enjoying life is to “stay present.”
These are people just like you who experience racing thoughts or get stuck in painful memories of the past.
Anxiousness about the future also spoils the now moments. When you feel anxious, focus on living in the present moment
Living in the present moment is “the secret” that ties all the other secrets of life together, and it is a process referred to as “mindfulness.”
Because there’s no way to deny that there’s an element of magic in staying present.
To be present, you must lasso all of your attention and pull it directly into what is happening in your life in each current moment as it comes.
5 Simple Ways to Stay Present in Everyday Life
How do you achieve mindfulness? There are many ways to enter into this psychological process, and the benefits are undeniable.
The following are five simple ways to stay present in the moments of your everyday life.
1. Focus on the Now
We have these amazing brains that store memories and have the capability of imagining the future.
Unfortunately, all these brain functions often get away from us and pull us in the wrong direction. Life is only actually lived right now, in the moment we currently have. Which you can do easily by practicing mindfulness.
Be very intentional about focusing on what you are doing at each moment.
Download my free mindfulness activities that will help you to focus more on the now and instantly feel calmer:
2. Use a Breathing Exercise
In the mindfulness movement, breathing has been identified as a key to being present in the moment.
Take in a breath and then consciously breathe out the stress you’ve been feeling. Spend several moments simply breathing in and breathing out the stress that would rob you of this moment.
The power of a breathing exercise is that you focus on your own intake and exhale of air, which can stop other thoughts from invading your consciousness.
Just start over with renewed focus if other thoughts interrupt your breathing exercise.
3. Take a Single-Task Approach
In this age of the Internet, we become easily distracted. The constant input from forces around the globe on our handheld devices sends us into a spiral of thoughts that rob us of the current moments.
Focus on completing a single task at a time. Don’t get diverted from your task by technology, or any other distracting thoughts.
4. Add a New Dimension to Common Tasks
Mundane tasks can be gateways to negative lines of thought. Turn everyday tasks upside down. Think through each everyday activity so that you maintain and sharpen your focus.
Do each set of tasks in reverse order, from the approach to brushing your teeth and putting on your clothing to the way you bath or shower and dry off. When you become overwhelmed by your to-do list, work on taking things one step at a time.
6. Control Your Thoughts
The idea of controlling your thoughts may be new. Many people’s lives are held captive by the flow of thoughts that never end.
So, it can be a surprise to find out that just as you can control your next breath, you can control your next thought. Thoughts are very powerful and have a direct effect on how you feel at any given moment.
A happy thought can lift your mood and bring a smile to your face. A sad thought can cause your emotions to plummet into feelings of depression.
Isn’t it good to know that your thoughts are in your control?
The following are some tips to help you master controlling your thoughts:
- It may help to think of thoughts as things—almost like tangible objects.
- Learn how to stop your thoughts, whether those thoughts are positive, negative, ridiculous, or dull. Doing this can be as simple as saying, “I’m stopping those thoughts and choosing to pick a different thought intentionally.” Make the thought a good one!
- Make it a practice to identify negative thoughts or when you are dreading something.
- Write out your negative thought processes or your dread. This removes them from being a movie in your head. The power of those thoughts decreases as you write them down. When you do this, you are disassociating yourself from the event that was playing in your mind.
- Identify the lie in the negative thoughts and find a positive truth that you can offset the lies with.
Related: How to Cleanse Your Mind of Negative Thoughts
5 Simple Ways to Stay Present in Everyday Life
Start noticing the direction of your thoughts and divert them elsewhere if they are negative.
These five simple ways to stay present in the moment are just the first step. If you want a happier life, you can begin to incorporate powerful thoughts such as gratefulness. It’s possible to enjoy everyday life.
It all starts with what you do with your next moment.
by The Lovely Refinement Team | Sep 1, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
Living a happier life is something we’re all searching for, right? The main goal of most humans on this planet is to just be happy.
And yet it’s something that feels difficult to achieve a lot of the time. If you fall into the trap of thinking “Once I have x,y,z then I’ll be happy“, then you’ve probably seen time and time again that even once you have everything perfectly in place, you still aren’t happy.
That’s because buying things, losing weight, traveling every other week, or staying busy doesn’t guarantee happiness.
All of these are more of a distraction than anything. It keeps your mind occupied for a little while, making you believe that this is the answer to your happiness.
At the beginning of your journey, you may feel excited or eager to reach these goals. However, for a lot of people even when they reach their goals they don’t always feel that much happier. Even if they do, it seems to vanish quickly after the high is gone.
We as humans are taught to chase what seems important. Things that don’t always mean a happier life.
Like success, money, being attractive, a large home, a good job, etc.
But these things are external factors that are only there to fit in with society. Society says all of these things are acceptable so it’s only natural for all of us to strive for them. But society and social status are not what makes you happy.
What are actually the simplest things in your life? Things that don’t require much of anything. Like the smile on your child’s face, walking your dog, sitting out in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon reading a good book. All of these things fill up your cup in different ways.
Giving you the keys to sustainable happiness throughout your life.
So, if you’re chasing materialistic and external things, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’m just saying to work on the things that truly make you happy internally.
And if you can’t think of anything at the moment, I’ve compiled a list of rules for living a happier life.
Here are 25 Essential Rules for Living a Happier Life
These rules for a happier life are things that create the kind of happiness that sticks with you. It doesn’t disappear as soon as the next new material item catches your interest.
1. Live in the moment.
Stop worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. Appreciate what is happening right now.
2. Give without expectation.
A compliment, a smile, your full attention, or an apology. Lend an ear when someone needs to talk. Forgive someone who has wronged you. There are many areas in which you can give without expectation.
3. Redefine the word failure.
Instead of thinking of it in terms of not succeeding, think of it as a challenge, a stepping stone. Reflect on it to see where things went wrong so you can adjust and keep going forward.
4. Stop overthinking.
Make a conscious effort to quiet your mind to all the negative things that can happen. Instead, focus on the positive outcome and go for it.
5. Own your emotions and actions.
Never place the blame for them on someone or something else.
6. Replace the words “should” or “could” with the word “will”.
I should/will stop smoking. I could/will be happier.
7. Stay focused on what you want.
It’s the only way to reach your goals. When you notice you’re losing focus, reflect on your thoughts and emotions.
Find the core reason for your distraction and deal with it so you can refocus and keep moving forward.
8. Practice acceptance.
Make peace with your past. Accept who and where you are now. Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Set realistic goals.
9. Allow your emotions to guide you, but not define you.
It’s perfectly okay to feel emotions as they indicate you’ve experienced something that needs your attention. But don’t allow them to shape your life, to define or control you.
10. Let go of your inner ‘control freak’ so you can experience all that life offers.
The need to be in control is based on fear and the desire to feel safe. But you cannot control everything. In fact, the only thing you have full control of is yourself. For true happiness, sometimes you must let go of the reins and see where life takes you.
11. Place more value on your experiences than on things.
When you think about it, material possessions come and go. They may make you happy in the short-term but that’s about it. What you remember most about them is the experiences you had with them – in buying, using, and enjoying them.
12. Celebrate even the smallest wins.
Big wins are great, but a happy life is filled with lots of small wins too.
13. Make each day worth living.
Wake with Mother Nature and enjoy the sunrise. Practice reflection and deep breathing techniques. Rise with intent each day. Smile, laugh, and share your joy.
14. Surround yourself with those who bring out the best in you.
Appreciate them. Express your gratitude for them being in your life. Share the love with others.
15. Be happy with yourself.
Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t rely on others to make you happy. Know that you are enough.
16. Stop talking and start listening.
The more you listen to yourself, the better you understand your thoughts, feelings, and actions. The more you listen when others are speaking, the deeper your connections will become.
17. Practice gratitude every day.
The more often you feel gratitude, the quicker it will become a habit. The more gratitude you feel, the more positive emotions you will evoke.
18. Start each day with the intent to be happy.
Wake up each morning and tell yourself “Today is going to be a great day and I’m going to make the most of it.” Starting the day with a positive thought will set your subconscious to seek out more positive things all day.
19. Don’t allow others to tell you what you should think or how you should feel.
You are in control of your thoughts and feelings. Only you know what’s happening on the inside.
20. Step out of your comfort zone.
Open your mind to new possibilities.
21. Stop thinking success will make you happy.
The opposite is true. Happiness makes you successful.
22. Follow your passion.
Find what makes you feel passionate and do it. Do more of what you love and less of what you don’t.
23. Find your true purpose.
If your life feels like it’s off-track, it could be that you’re not following your true purpose. Spend some time getting to know yourself and your desires. Find that one thing that makes life worth living well.
24. Practice forgiveness.
When you refuse to forgive, you only hurt yourself. Rather than view forgiveness as something you do for the other person, do it for yourself. By forgiving, you open more room within yourself for love, kindness, beauty, and happiness.
25. Focus on the positive.
Train yourself to speak and think in positive terms. Practice viewing the glass as half full rather than half empty.
Every time you experience negative self-talk, turn that negative into a positive. When something bad happens, accept responsibility for your part in it but do not place full blame on yourself.
25 Essential Rules For A Happier Life
These are 25 Essential Rules for Living a Happier Life. Do you have more to add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
by The Lovely Refinement Team | Jul 20, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
Why Courage is the Foundation to a Better Life. Once you establish courage, you begin to better your life.
Constructing courage will help you take risks to a brighter future that you usually wouldn’t take. When you establish courage, you put fear behind you.
Bravery is the process of admitting that you have dreads, yet you’re willing to determine a way to defeat those fears and not let these fears take charge of you. It’s ok to experience your fears at suitable times.
When you establish courage, you’ll learn to self-direct yourself in life.
You’ll learn to accept punishment and rewards graciously.
A courageous individual will frequently feel motivated to accept blame and responsibility while critiquing their actions and utilizing what they learn to move forward.
Brave individuals will step to the front, instead of stepping back when opportunities come their way.
At the same time, a brave individual will step back and take a view at his or her errors gracefully. They are willing to see their mistakes and grow from these things.
An individual willing to better their life will relax.
This individual will relax even when plans fail. For example, if it stormed the next day the individual will find something else to occupy his or her time and feel just as happy about joining this adventure.
You learn to take things as they come to you. And don’t get me wrong, it’s great to plan for things.
But, to be courageous means to walk into the unknown and believe you will make it through. And you know how unpredictable life can be no matter how much you plan for it.
Courage teaches you to be ok with the what-ifs in life and allows you to relax and enjoy your life more.
To be successful and better your life you’ll need to learn how to trust yourself.
When you trust yourself, you are able to trust others too. Regrettably, we live in a world where trust is difficult to find, yet when you trust yourself, you can’t blame other people when things go wrong.
It’s not easy believing in yourself 100% of the time. Life gets really freaking hard sometimes and it shakes you up.
Things happen to you that make you question yourself and the people around you, and it’s so easy for trust to be broken.
But, I believe that in order to really love yourself and feel confident in your own skin you have to build up that trust from within. Do things that push you out of your comfort zone and make it a positive experience.
Write down mini-wins in your notebook about how you made it through a tough day, or about a moment in your life when you weren’t sure of yourself but did it anyway.
Take note of these things and encourage yourself to grow, because this is how you build courage and how you build trust.
Related: How to Love Yourself More and Develop a Positive Mindset
Bettering your life includes utilizing your creative and critical mind.
When you can produce fresh ideas, you’re off on the road to success. You’ve many options in this world; it takes you to pull up resources to find those choices.
Occasionally in life, we feel uncomfortable. In fact, this is common.
Are you willing to accept your irritations?
Maybe at an interview, you feel lost. Are you willing to accept this irritation and discover a way to deliver a great speech to impress the interviewer? Alternatively, are you willing to allow negative energies to cost you the job?
Acceptance is your key to happiness.
When you are able to learn to accept the good with the bad, you are able to learn how to live happier and better your life.
If you can’t accept, however, well, reread this material again.
Have more fun adding more happiness to your life by trying this Smoothie Revolution Recipe!
SMOOTHIE REVOLUTION RECIPE
- 1 ½ cups dairy-free milk
- 1 cup kale
- ½ cup parsley leaves (flat-leaf)
- 1 green apple, chopped
- 1 tablespoon flax meal or chia seeds
- 1 teaspoon maca powder
by The Lovely Refinement Team | Jul 20, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
Often times, negative thoughts can creep into our day-to-day life and cause a little bump in our lives. Negative thoughts can affect our drive and ability to navigate through life’s tasks as fluidly as we’d like.
A negative mindset can also affect sleep, motivation, productivity, emotional strength, and stability.
Negative energy can pull you down, and the unconscious mind works in such powerful ways, to diminish our happiness and make us feel poorly about certain things in our life.
If you’re feeling down or overrun by negative thoughts, read on for some guidance on overcoming this obstacle.
How to Cleanse Your Mind of Negative Thoughts
The most effective way to cleanse your mind of negative energy is to find the source of your unhappiness;
The root of what is directly causing these negative thoughts to surface. Ask yourself, what is causing me to have these negative thoughts?
Is it another person putting these thoughts into your head? Is it how you view yourself personally?
Start by finding the root of the problem and then you can work from there. This can be an eye-opening experience for a lot of people because we are often too afraid to dig any deeper.
We don’t want to reveal why it is we think so negatively all the time, for fear of making it worse. When in reality once you identify the poisonous source you can then work on removing it from your life.
Your happiness lies in the solution to your answer.
Related: How to Get Rid of Negative Thinking and Live a Better Life
1. Find a quiet place to sit and reflect.
Close your eyes and identify the root of your unhappiness. Allow your thoughts and feelings to reflect on how this thought is affecting you. How does it make you feel?
Any time a negative thought floats into your mind try to pay attention to it. What is it about this thought that’s making you feel bad?
Let’s say you neglect to take care of your own needs and wants. When you ignore your own needs it becomes harder to set boundaries with other people. The end result is people taking advantage of your kindness and you’re left feeling empty and depleted.
Your mind can then turn to negative thoughts like “No one cares about me, all I do is care for other people. What is it about me that is so meaningless?”
That’s a negative thought right there, so now it’s time to dissect it a little more. Reflect on why it is you don’t feel good enough. Why is it hard for you to set boundaries with other people? Is it a fear of wanting to be liked, of not being there for someone when they really need you?
This is just an example for someone struggling to set boundaries, but this is the same process you can work through no matter what thoughts you are having. This way you can identify the negativity and really begin to understand why it is you feel this way.
2. At this point, decide what you would like to replace your negative thoughts with.
Perhaps a word or phrase, an action, or a happy memory.
Feel yourself releasing the tension and negative thoughts from your head to your toes. Visualizing the tension exiting your body and replacing that space with positivity is the key to permanently ridding yourself of these negative thoughts.
Soak it in and let it absorb the empty space of negativity that has left your body.
This takes time, perhaps as short as 3 minutes, or as long as 8-10 minutes. However long it takes, ensuring you have completely detached from the negative thoughts is important. Any stranded thoughts can resurface into the negative energy you are working at resolving.
Replacing a negative thought with a positive one is an easy practice that shouldn’t have much weight attached to it. You are just trying to retrain your brain into thinking better about yourself.
There will be days where your negativity takes over your mind and that’s ok, don’t force positive thoughts if they aren’t coming to you.
Related: How to Love Yourself More and Develop a Positive Mindset
3. Go slow and be patient with yourself
Like I said, telling yourself to just be more positive won’t work. Filling your mind with affirmations that you don’t fully believe won’t work.
There is stuff that does work, and it’s the most realistic thing you can do. Affirmations sound great in theory, but they don’t make much sense in the real world. When you are struggling mentally and just want the bad thoughts to disappear.
What does help, is going easy on yourself and taking it slow Just like with anything else, cleansing your negative thoughts takes time.
It involves being patient and kind with yourself, and not giving up when you have setbacks.
How to Cleanse Your Mind of Negative Thoughts – Conclusion
Truthfully, I still have days where my mind is FULL of negative toxic thoughts. Even when I try everything in the book to feel better, I just can’t.
That’s when I just tell myself “Ok, today is not my day. Things will get better because it all balances out. But, today I am not going to force myself to work on this when clearly my brain just wants to be negative.”
When I tell myself this, I then do something that takes very little brainpower.
Like watching Netflix or silly YouTube videos. Do something where you don’t have to think too much and try to take that pressure off.
Print out this post and leave it on your refrigerator. Anytime you feel negative energy creeping your way, commit to this quick yet effective guideline to cleanse your mind!
by The Lovely Refinement Team | Jul 20, 2019 | Dealing With Emotions, Finding Motivation, Happiness Tips, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement
Learning how to love yourself more takes time… and truthfully it’s a process that you go through for the rest of your life.
We often have to unlearn a lot of things we were taught growing up. And separate our own beliefs from the ones others put into our brains at an early age.
If you grew up feeling unsure of yourself and not knowing how to properly love yourself, you are definitely not alone! As children, we have to frequently be nurtured and encouraged, but it’s all too easy for adults to ignore these things.
Not by any fault of their own… we are human after all.
That just means as you grow up and learn to do things on your own, like live on your own, cook your own food, and provide for yourself, you also have to learn how to love yourself.
No matter what age you are it’s never too late to learn. I wish loving yourself was something we were taught in high school, but it’s not. It’s something you learn as you grow up and develop into the person you’re supposed to be.
How To Love Yourself More – Develop A Positive Mindset
So how do we get there? What steps need to be taken to fully love yourself more?
1. Be More Mindful
It first starts with becoming more mindful of how you react to things. Whether that’s being triggered by something bad or when something makes you feel happy.
You have to start being more mindful of what your body is telling you. By listening to yourself more and your internal cues, you can begin to understand what your needs and wants are.
I like to say that becoming more mindful is the same as basically resetting your brain because you have gone your whole life up to this point thinking a certain way. And if you don’t know how to love yourself then you have to change that thought process.
You have to take a step back and pay attention to what your mind and body is doing. Then, learn how to listen to what you need because chances are you have ignored your own needs and wants for a long time.
Long enough to completely forget what it is that you enjoy.
2. Identify Your Surroundings
So as you are becoming more mindful and aware, you then have to pay attention to your surroundings. What are the people you spend your time with like? Are they generally pretty positive or do you have some people in your life who only see the negative?
If you have struggled to love yourself growing up, was there anyone in your family that made you question your worth? Sometimes parents, intentionally or not, can make their children feel like they aren’t good enough. We value our parents’ opinions as we grow up and if they disapprove this can have a direct effect on your own self-worth.
Allowing others to decide how worthy you are means you don’t love yourself very much. It means you don’t matter as much.
And this is totally normal, but I want to point it out to you. If you place your value in other people’s hands then you have to start identifying when you do this, with whom you do this, and why. What is it that makes you compare yourself to others, to not feel as good as you should?
Think about these questions as you continue reading through.
Related: 15 Important Things to Do When You Don’t Feel Good Enough
4. Set Boundaries and Limits
I think setting boundaries is a difficult thing to do. You want other people to like you, so you ignore warning signs and allow people to walk all over you.
I do this, too. In the past, I have let others completely take advantage of me just because I wanted to be nice and wanted people to like me. For the longest time, I cared wayyy too much about what people thought of me.
And if you’re an empath then setting boundaries will be a little more difficult for you. Because you can give and give and give until your cup is depleted. Until you have absolutely nothing else left to give.
But, you need to protect yourself from certain people in the world who just take and take. It would be so amazing if everyone could sense when they are taking advantage of someone, but it’s just not the case.
That’s why setting boundaries is so necessary for your own growth. For you to love yourself you have to take a stand for yourself. You need to say no and draw a line at the moments you don’t feel comfortable.
If you need a night to yourself to recharge, cancel your plans and do what YOU need to reset. If you ignore your wants and needs, then you will not feel mentally strong enough to stick to the boundaries you set.
5. Loving yourself is a process and you will have setbacks.
You’ll have moments that you will self-sabotage and not feel so great. But, then you can get right back up and keep going on the journey of loving yourself.
Self-sabotage is a habit that we create. That’s all it is… a habit, which can be changed with some effort.
When we get triggered, we self-sabotage. Even if you are feeling amazing you might have this fear inside you that takes over and says “Oh no, you’re happy… that means things are about to get really bad soon.” so you somehow end up ruining the good things in your life.
But, I’m happy to say that you can break this cycle. It’s just ingrained into your brain, but you can learn to break those bad habits that you’re in and move forward.
As long as you don’t give up, you will start to love and believe in yourself over time.
How to Develop a Positive Mindset
1. Energy Attracts Energy
Energy tends to attract similar energy, whether it is good or bad energy.
If you are sending out negative thoughts constantly, you are probably going to get that negative energy back.
On the other hand, if you can put all the most positive energy out, then you will get positive energy back. This is the core of why positive thinking works in your favor and why you should start embracing it more in your regular life.
2. Support Others More
Positive thinking isn’t just good for your own life, but for others as well!
If misery loves company, then doesn’t happiness?
By being a happier, more fulfilled person, you can spread that positive energy around and help others feel better as well.
Try to remain positive and uplifted when talking to other people in your daily life, and you will be amazed by what a more peaceful place the world becomes. Positive energy truly spreads around just as quickly as negative energy.
3. Improve Your Physical Health
Many people look at positive thinking and self-improvement as something that helps their mental health, which is true, but that’s not all. It can also have a positive impact on your mental health.
Whether you have mental conditions like anxiety and stress or just want to improve your mental clarity and focus, it can be really useful.
Positive thinking helps you to feel better, which can then create better motivation, and higher energy, and help you find more inspiration.
Related: 10 Ways Exercise Improves Your Mental Health
4. Get into Meditation
Positive thinking, mindfulness, and meditation, all go hand-in-hand. When you are working on one of them, the rest tend to follow.
Start meditating and practicing mindfulness while you are focusing on more positive thoughts, and it will make all the other benefits even better.
Suddenly you feel like you can take on anything and the positive energy will surround you.
