Seven ways to understand and improve your relationship with yourself
Tired of battling dramas? Discover seven ways to understand and improve your relationship with yourself, and enjoy an easier and happier life.
Have you ever thought about your relationship with yourself? Ever wondered why some people are able to go through their lives without too much drama, while others have constant problems – whether it’s finding a job, getting along with friends, or other issues?
One reason why you may have more difficulties is the way you view yourself. If you don’t like yourself or feel bad about yourself, it will be harder to convince others that you are worth their time and energy. And you could feel more resentful of others who seem to sail effortlessly through life, and have easy relationships with others.
How can you improve your relationship with yourself?
How you approach improving your relationship with yourself will be slightly different depending on who you are and what you’re like. However, it basically depends on three things:
- Feeling good about yourself.
- Understanding why you do the things you do so that you can get a better understanding of yourself.
- Knowing how to connect with yourself constructively so that you can have a healthy relationship with your mind.
With that in mind, what can you do to improve your relationship with yourself – and live an easier, happier life?
Seven ways you can improve your relationship with yourself
If you want to have a better relationship with yourself, read on to discover seven simple adjustments you can make.
1) Think positively
Think about what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing. Think about the things that people compliment you on. This will help to remind yourself of your strengths, which is a positive thing. You’ll feel better about yourself if you focus on your strengths because when we don’t think about our positives qualities, we automatically give in to negativity and, in turn, look for something negative to fixate on.
2) Pay attention
When someone does something nice, say thank you or acknowledge them somehow. Don’t brush it under the rug or ignore it because that person put time and effort into whatever they did for you, and they deserve recognition for their efforts. This will also reinforce how great of a person you are because when somebody does something nice for you, it is a nice gesture and something that should be acknowledged.
3) Take care of your mind
Health comes, so if you want to feel better about yourself and improve your relationship with yourself, this has to start from the inside out. You have to eat well so your body stays healthy and strong, making it easier for you to do all kinds of everyday tasks.
Doing things like eating smart and staying active will also help you sleep well at night. Proper nutrition helps normalize metabolism, while cardiovascular activity helps reduce anxiety levels, allowing you to get a good night’s rest when you hit the sheets.
4) Talk to yourself just like you would with a very good friend
Talk to yourself like you would talk to someone else about the problems that you are having. If you do this, it will help remind you that even though nobody seems to understand what’s bugging you at the moment, there is somebody who does. You can analyze your issues and work through them until they are resolved by talking out loud to yourself about them.
5) Accept responsibility for your actions
Don’t blame anyone or anything, especially not yourself, if things don’t turn out exactly as planned. Take full responsibility for your life and recognize that 100% of all power derives from within so when something goes wrong, reflect inwardly on where you went wrong to achieve success.
6) Take care of your appearance
It’s absolutely not superficial to care about how you look, so don’t allow yourself to shallow or vain for taking care over your appearance. Body image worries can contribute to mental health problems, such as a lower quality of life, anxiety and unhealthy behaviours such as eating disorders.
So it’s important to focus on what you like about yourself, and look after your appearance. The more care you take over wearing clothes you feel good in and personal grooming, the better you’ll feel about yourself when you look in the mirror. It also helps to keep active – not only will that give you a healthier body you love, but it can also increase your endorphins.
7) Never underestimate your worth
Always be aware that no matter how far down the wrong path you go or how much trouble you run into along the way, remember never to stop believing in yourself. Nobody else will have faith in you like you should have faith in yourself.
It is also important that you don’t get discouraged if you do more of the bad things than the good because nobody is perfect, and everybody slips up from time to time. Just keep doing more of what’s right, and soon enough, your good habits will be second nature.
The best way to stick to positive actions would be by putting a reminder of them somewhere visible – a sticky note on your cupboard, for example, or post-it notes on the computer monitor so you can see it every morning before work, etc.
Things to avoid when trying to improve your relationship with yourself
There will always be distractions and things out of your control that may cause you to slip up and do or say something that will harm your relationship with yourself. This is normal, and it’s important to remember that nobody’s perfect. Even the most positive people get caught up in their emotions from time to time and revert to their negative ways.
If this happens, try not to get discouraged because the important thing is that you continue to improve yourself in any way possible. There are many ways of doing this, but it all starts with taking care of yourself first so you can be in a better position to help others around you in need or just feel good about being able to help someone else when they need it most.
That’s why it’s not really necessary to beat yourself up when you do something that takes you further away from your ultimate goal and closer towards the negative side of life. The best course of action is just quickly to acknowledge it and then let it go.
By doing this, you’re taking responsibility for your actions. Instead of wallowing in regret about what happened, you’re using the opportunity as a way to improve yourself by finding out what went wrong and correcting it next time around.
Here are a five important things you may want to avoid to improve your relationship with yourself.
1) Don’t take work home with you
If you’re angry about something that happened at work, don’t let it transfer to your personal life. If there are people around who bring out negativity in you, try avoiding them, so they don’t affect your mood negatively and instead focus on the good things in life.
2) Don’t be too hard on yourself if you ever slip up
If you do happen to act poorly towards the ones you love or yourself for that matter, just remember not to beat yourself up over it because nobody’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes – this includes you as well. So understand that just because somebody else does something wrong doesn’t mean that people should be pointing fingers or talking badly about them behind their back because this kind of behavior will only spread negativity.
3) Be aware that you have bad days, don’t dwell on them for too long
You’re human, and like everybody else, sometimes your mood can be affected by internal or external factors, which may make you act in a way you, would not normally act; this does not make you a bad person; it’s just part of being human. The important thing to remember is that these moments are temporary, and things will get better soon enough.
4) Don’t let your past dictate who you are now or continue to hold you back
Everyone has a past, but if you don’t let it go and instead allow it to affect every day of your life, this will cause problems for yourself and the ones around you. It’s very important just to move on once something is over with because dwelling in regret or holding onto negativity will benefit nobody – including yourself.
5) Don’t feel bad about making mistakes; learn from them instead
As mentioned before, everybody makes mistakes, so try not to beat yourself up too much whenever one happens; instead, use it as an opportunity to improve by recognizing what went wrong and how best to avoid doing the same thing again next time around.
How can you work on caring for and improving yourself?
To understand yourself better, remember to take care of yourself first before anybody else so you’ll be able to help others around the most. Try to improve yourself in any way possible by finding out what went wrong when something negative happens and making sure it doesn’t happen again. After all, nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes, no matter how hard they try not to.
Opal Miyamoto is a friendly and communicative college essay services provider based in the United States. She’s always open to new connections and fancies painting and cooking.
Photo by Milan Popovic
