Six signs you don’t love yourself

Self-hate, though a strong term, refers to an intense dislike for yourself. When you don’t love yourself, you have a difficult time seeing yourself in a positive light. You spend a lot of time criticizing and second-guessing yourself.

We’ve talked about practicing self-love and the habits you should adopt to show yourself a little love. However, in order to love yourself and live a full life, you need to identify those habits that you might have that contribute to self-hate.

Below are the tell-tale signs that you do not love yourself.

1. You entertain toxic people

When you are dealing with your own insecurities to the extent of hating yourself, the people around you begin to notice. You end up attracting people who prey on your vulnerabilities. You hardly notice this since you are your biggest critic. The end result is your self-esteem gets lowered even more. The only way to break this chain is by recognizing your worth and distancing yourself from these toxic people.

2. Self-harm

Deliberate self-harm is an unfortunate outcome of self-hate. People who lack a sense of self-worth, feel like nobody cares about them. Whereas you and I know we were put on earth for a purpose, they fail to find meaning in their existence. These feelings can make them try to harm themselves. Self-harm can also be a way of punishing themselves for their perceived wrong-doing.  When you begin to love yourself, you gain confidence in yourself and start to value your life.

3. You compare yourself to others

Comparison is the thief of joy. Self-loathing manifests itself when you cannot stop comparing yourself to others. You place higher value on others’ achievements and fail to see the value in yours. Others seem to live a better life than you. Comparison brings with it self-doubt. You are unable to bring your brilliant ideas to fruition because you doubt your abilities. You believe that there is someone better suited to do the job.  Loving yourself means being your loudest cheerleader even when nobody else pays you any notice. With willpower and self-assurance, you will be able to attain your goals without being influenced by others’ opinions and achievements.

4. Negative self-talk

We all have an inner critic. What distinguishes people who love themselves from those who don’t is how the former respond to it. When you don’t love yourself, you hardly have anything positive to say about yourself. You criticize every move you make or don’t make for that matter. This often leads to self-sabotage since your lack of self-belief prevents you from achieving anything. To counter this, ignore your inner critic and focus on your abilities and achievements instead. Talk yourself up and you will see growth in your confidence.

5. Failure to prioritize or create time for yourself

Unlike what some claim, having ‘me time’ doesn’t makes you a selfish human. One of the signs that you self-hate is when your needs come last, always. This shouldn’t be the case. You need to ensure that no day passes without setting aside time to do that which is important to you. Create ‘me time’ which is absolutely essential to help you recharge so that you can better deal with other people. Prioritize your goals instead of only working to help others achieve theirs.

6. You don’t take pride in your appearance

Your appearance says a lot about you. How you think you look says even more. If you are constantly body-shaming yourself, focusing only on those parts that are less desirable, and never have anything positive to say about your appearance, you lack self-love. The trickle-down effect of this type of self-loathing is failure to dress well which is disguised as not caring about your appearance or what others think of you. Self-love is all about body appreciation. It is about embracing your true self whether the world thinks you are perfect or not, and wearing what makes you feel confident.

The world will not love you if you don’t love yourself first. Embrace your uniqueness and others will follow.