Most of us know what it’s like to appreciate other people, and most of us hope that others appreciate us. But how many of us strive to appreciate ourselves?
For you today, I have five benefits of appreciating yourself, as well as ways that you can try to appreciate yourself a little more to get to those results.
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Holding Yourself To A Higher Standard
When we don’t appreciate ourselves, we tend to set the bar pretty low. Meeting our expectations becomes less impressive, but more acceptable. If we learn to appreciate ourselves, we are likely to expect a bit more from ourselves. This kind of attitude makes us reach for higher goals, and it makes it easier to quit bad habits.
To develop this kind of attitude, consider trying to set the bar for yourself a little higher the next time that a challenge comes up. Or think about getting out of your comfort zone by taking on new responsibilities at work or in social groups.
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Contentment With Life
When we don’t appreciate ourselves, we tend to have a “get what we deserve” attitude that makes us accept things about our life that we don’t like and take for granted things about our life that we do like.
When we learn to appreciate ourselves, we are more likely to take pride and comfort in our achievements and our standard of living. We also become more likely to address things in our life that we aren’t fond of, like a job that doesn’t challenge us, or a living space that doesn’t meet our needs.
Work on this aspect of self-appreciation by taking a moment to consider all of the good things that you have done for yourself, like your job and your house or apartment. If you are a younger reader, consider the work that you put in at school. Next consider some things that you would like to change. You don’t have to have an action plan ready now on how you might address those things but think about how you could work to achieve them.
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Self-appreciation Leads To Self-Compassion
When we don’t appreciate ourselves, we are more likely to be hard on ourselves when things don’t go as planned. It can be easier to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes by blaming everything on ourselves instead of thinking about what went wrong and why.
When we learn to appreciate ourselves, we learn to treat ourselves more like we would be likely to treat other people if they had a bad day: with compassion. Treating ourselves with compassion is better than beating ourselves up for a number of reasons. First, it is more educational. If we immediately blame ourselves when things go wrong, it can be difficult to figure out a creative solution. Second, it creates a loop that makes it easier for us to feel better about ourselves.
The next time that something goes well, consider all of the factors that were involved, and which ones failed. The idea isn’t to remove yourself from the equation, maybe you really did make a mistake. But maybe you received faulty instructions. Maybe someone else didn’t do their part adequately. Then, instead of wallowing in your self-blame, come up with a solution and address the problem again.
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Appreciate Others More
Some experts believe that when we don’t appreciate ourselves we are likely to have a harder time appreciating others. Think of the previous section: If we immediately blame ourselves for everything that goes wrong in our life, why would we not assume that everybody’s problems are entirely their own fault?
Looking at our life and realizing that while our shortcomings are certainly our own responsibility to deal with, they are not all entirely our own doing can help us to understand where other people are coming from when they struggle with things. This can make it easier to appreciate other people just as it can help us to appreciate ourselves.
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Better Self Care
Finally, appreciating ourselves can lead us to taking better care of ourselves.
Self Care is more than just not beating ourselves up when things go wrong. Self Care is about giving ourselves the tools that we need to protect our mental state in the long term. It’s easier to take care of ourselves when we appreciate ourselves and it is easier to appreciate ourselves when we take care of our own needs.
Friends, you deserve to at least try to practice some of the above suggestions in this article, like thinking about your needs and being grateful for what you have. You will definitely be on your way to developing a Self Care routine.
Hopefully, this has shown you some ways that you can learn to appreciate yourself, and that learning to appreciate yourself is more than just a feel-good objective. It’s a practical goal that can help us all to live a more meaningful and enjoyable life.
Coach 10/04/2021
