When I decided that I was going to love and accept myself I had no idea how hard it would be to accomplish that and how long it would take. Growing up in a society that does not emphasize self love, self care or self acceptance made it so that my tendencies to think negatively of myself were so ingrained that I had to completely change my thought processes. The lack of emphasis on the importance of loving yourself coupled with not seeing my body type in the media as a young girl led me to hate my appearance. From this hatred of my body stemmed a deeper self hatred that at one point resulted in me not being able to name a single thing I liked about myself, let alone loved. I wrote about how I came to the conclusion that it was time to embark on this journey and learn to love myself here and now that I feel I'm at a point where I truly do love and accept myself I wanted to give some tips for those of you who may just be starting your journey.

1. Learning to love yourself is WORK

I don't know what exactly I expected when I first decided that it was time for me to fall in love with myself but I definitely didn't expect the years long process that occurred. Honestly, I feel as though I'm still on the journey, I may be on this journey for the rest of my life, but now I'm at a point that I truly do love and accept myself unconditionally. That definitely didn't happen overnight though. There were many days along the way when I didn't feel like I was worth loving at all. I had to force myself to change my thinking patterns and constantly remind myself that I WAS worth it and that the negative thoughts that constantly crept in were wrong.

2. It is harder to love yourself than it is to love others

Falling in love with yourself is not like falling in love or making a new best friend because like I said in the previous point it is WORK. When you think about it, you know yourself better than you know anyone else, you're with yourself all of the time. You know your every thought and action and that's what makes falling in love with yourself and accepting yourself so hard. When you love someone else you don't ever see every single part of them and often times it is a lot easier to ignore or accept flaws because of this. You'll never be as critical of others as you are of yourself.

3. Even when you do learn to love yourself you will have bad days and negative thoughts

Once you have fallen in love with yourself, that's not the end of the road. There's still plenty of work to be done because negative thoughts and bad days are a part of life. You have to learn how to not let these undermine your self love and how to give yourself some grace. Which is just as hard as falling in love with yourself in the first place. You can be doing great and feel like you're in a great place but if you let yourself believe every negative thought you have about yourself it won't last. You have to remind yourself that those negative thoughts are wrong and if you truly believe that the negative thought is true, make a change.

4. Fake it 'til you make it

I really can't pinpoint the moment when I fell in love with myself, or when I learned to accept myself and all of my flaws or when my love for myself became unconditional. That's because I spent a lot of my journey pretending that I did love myself, even though I wasn't quite there yet. I told myself that whatever negative thoughts I had about myself were wrong, even if I didn't quite believe it yet. I told myself that I was beautiful and worthy, even when I didn't feel beautiful and worthy. I faked it until one day I realized that I wasn't faking it anymore.

5. You can love every part of yourself and still be a work in progress

I'm definitely still working on myself, there are a lot of habits I want to adopt, a lot of lessons I've yet to learn but that doesn't mean that I can't love every single part of myself in the meantime. I don't think that anyone ever really stops changing, it's just a part of life and learning to love your changes and your progress are a part of learning to love yourself.

6. You can recognize your flaws (and actively work on them) without hating yourself for them

You can look at your life and your actions and say "I really need to change X" without having to beat yourself up or hate yourself for it. Instead of wasting your energy hating yourself for it, spend that energy actively working to change it. If you don't like your weight or your body, try exercising or changing your diet so you can get into shape. If you don't like the people or the energy that's surrounding you then work on changing your environment. It's easy to recognize your flaws and hate yourself for them, it's hard to recognize your flaws and decide to find a way to change or accept them instead.

7. Not everyone will be happy that you are making progress

There will always be people around you that don't want to see you progress. It can hurt at first when you realize that someone who is important to you isn't proud of the progress you're making. However, these are the type of people that shouldn't be in your life in the first place. Don't let those who would rather you stay sedentary undermine your progress or keep you from moving forward.

8. You will outgrow certain people, that's okay

Even if you have friends who are proud of you and everything you are doing, you may still grow apart or outgrow them. There's nothing wrong with that. There are also the people who you never should have been around in the first place who you will realize no longer deserve a role in your life. That's okay too. It may be hard to let go, even when you feel someone doesn't deserve to be in your life, but do it. It will be better for everyone involved in the long run.

9. Learning to love yourself will make it easier to love others

One thing I learned in falling in love with myself is that it's a lot easier for me to love others and be a good friend to those around me. When I'm not spending all of my time and energy thinking about how much I hate myself or my life I have a lot of time left to dedicate to those around me. I have a lot more to give those near me now that I have learned to love myself.

10. Falling in love with yourself is the best feeling

Loving and accepting yourself unconditionally feels like all of the best feelings rolled into one. I honestly cannot think of a single experience that tops this one. Even though I know I still have a lot of progress to make in my own life, doing so is a lot easier now that I am able to accept my mistakes and love myself in spite of them. Situations that I found nearly impossible to deal with previously are a lot easier for me to handle now. The feeling of loving yourself fully and whole-heartedly is something that I cannot put into words but please take my word for it.

I hope that as you embark on your journey to love yourself you find these tips helpful and I hope that one day you can understand the feeling of loving yourself unconditionally.