How to Love Yourself and Why It’s Crucial to Happiness and Success

I’ve spent the better portion of my life, over 40 years, in high-achievement mode. I’ve definitely been trained to prepare, think, be logical, and fight. I’ve been the warrior, ready to do whatever it takes. Yet, the more I learn about the Wizard in me, the more I learn about being in the present moment, and the better I do. Now, I have less stress and negative thoughts than I ever had before. While difficult, many people have gone through a similar journey, and it all starts with a single, stressful breaking point that pushes people to finally ask, “How to love yourself?”

Why Learning How to Love Yourself is the Only Real Path to Success

Being committed to success is one thing, but it isn’t your life. If it is your life, you’ve got a big problem because what if you’re not as successful as you’d like to be? If you want to learn to love yourself, you’ll need to learn how to find worth, a healthy self-esteem, and a positive self-image outside of traditional success.

Let me tell you that after over 40 years — and being successful for 30 of those years — I know the difference in the mistakes I made before when I was broke, versus how I am now. Now I’m a lot richer, a lot happier, and have a lot more self-love.

Learn to be Grateful

Yes, being committed is helpful. Doing whatever it takes is helpful, but equating these pursuits to your life esteem, self-worth, or worthiness is not appropriate, and that’s what I was doing.

Life is life, and you need to be grateful for every moment that you have, whether you’re ultra-successful, moderately successful, a little successful, or not very successful at all. You need to be grateful for the breath that you’re getting.

When you’re grateful and happy with where you are in life — no matter your level of success — you will emit and express an energy of happiness. That’s a high energy feeling, and people will want to be around you because it feels good. When you’re grateful, you attract people toward you, which will in turn help you financially.

Money is challenging to get when you’re a jerk. Money is challenging to get when you’re in fear. Most importantly, money is challenging to get when you’re overly stressed, filled with negative thoughts, and preaching negative self-talk. Why? Because nobody wants to be around you.

Today, I can smell these negative emotions on people because I’m successful. I can smell the fear, the lack of confidence, and the lack of self-esteem. You’re either attracting people, or you’re repelling them. It’s one or the other, and too often it’s the latter.

Maybe you’re saying, “Harv, you’re talking to me. What should I do?”

Make Friends With Yourself

The first step in learning how to love yourself is learning how to make friends with yourself. Think about it. If you were in a relationship, or you had a friend that treated you the way that you treat you, you would never be their friend. If you had a friend that kept putting you down the way your mind does; a friend that kept on hurrying you, or a friend that kept looking for what was wrong with you, would you be their friend? NEVER.

Instead, you would think this person was a jerk. But it’s okay if you do it, right? No, it’s not okay.

The fact is most of us don’t practice friendship with ourselves, especially not one that includes unconditional love.

From here on in, put down the stick. Drop the whip. Whips don’t work. Sticks don’t work. Stop beating yourself up with what you think you should be like, could be like, or what it would be nice to be like. In conclusion, you have to drop all these expectations that you have of your life and be kind to yourself.

Self-Kindness Translates to Success

People say to me all of the time, “Harv, how do I be successful?” In return, I say, “If you want to be a success, then you need to feel like a success. You need to smell like a success.”

Making these changes doesn’t mean a lot of money right this minute necessarily. It doesn’t mean a perfect life right now. However, it does mean that you’re learning to love you, as you are right here and now. Say to yourself, “I’m good. It’s all good. Life is good. I appreciate life. I’m grateful for it. I focus on the good in my life and not the bad.”

No matter how long it takes, sincerely being your best friend is going to start to empower you. In turn, that empowerment is going to bring out an energy of success in your life. When you have that, new ideas, new people, and new opportunities will come to you.

It’s time to start becoming your biggest cheerleader and loving yourself! What tools, sayings, or strategies help you stay positive and boost your self-esteem? What was the start of your journey in learning how to love yourself? Share your stories in the comments below. We want to hear from you!

For Your Freedom,

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