If there's one thing I've learned in life so far, it's this: it's important to be your own biggest fan. Without loving yourself, you can't shine love onto anything else. While friends and family are still very important supporters essential to our lives, how can we expect anyone to appreciate us if we don't appreciate ourselves?
We say practice makes perfect. The more we do things, the better we become. Imagine if we practiced supporting and enjoying ourselves every day – even in our mistakes and faults. We would then grow to learn that without an optimistic, self-loving mindset, nothing is truly valuable.
I recently read something written by Vienna Pharaon:
"Our greatest matches will be people who simply make us better. They don't even try. It's just their presence or the way they live their lives that makes us want to be better than we are today. You see, we start to want to change not because the other person wants to control us but because our admiration for them is all the incentive we need. The truth is, when we admire our partners and friends it winds up being the purest driving force behind our change and growth. So when you meet people who listen and make you smile, people who make you happy and make you do those silly quirky things...when they make you see and tap into your greatest self...and when their presence alone fills you with admiration...just know...know you've got something special."
I saw this excerpt because my friend posted it on Instagram with the caption, "To all the wonderful people who have come into my life over the past 18 months...I am so grateful." I was humbled after reading this because it caused me to think that even the simplest things we do in life without trying can have the power to inspire or help another person. Even if it's one person that we have slightly affected by showing them our truest selves, we have made an incredible impact.
Society today (myself included) tends to get so caught up in what others think. We constantly post pictures, captions and videos to let others know what we are up to, simply just for the satisfaction that they know. When was the last time you did something incredibly fun and didn't post it on Snapchat? Instead, we should embrace those precious moments for ourselves and remember them in our minds, sometimes for only us to reminisce on.
We need to stop trying so hard to impress others and think about the fact that the only person we need to impress is ourselves. By doing that and by being happy with the utmost version of ourselves, our radiance automatically is shone onto other people. It is then that people look to us and admire us for being who we truly are.
It's important to understand that the people we often try to impress may not really be who we desire to surround ourselves with. If they don't admire you for your unique qualities, who are we to change those about ourselves to conform to their expectation?
Changing our mentality to cater to loving ourselves is a hard concept. But by doing it, we are then liberated from constantly adhering to society's standards. We can then, love ourselves.
