When I started self-improvement, I thought self-love was my salvation.
Self-love would be the all-in-one solution. I started this path with the thought:”i want to love myself”.
Along the way, I made mistakes and realized I had flawed thoughts that sabotaged my progress.
It made me stuck in this loop of starting and quitting
So in this blog, I want to share the mistakes and thoughts that were blocking my way for you to avoid or be aware of them
because it could be sneaky sometimes if you don’t pay attention
Self-love is my salvation
Back then, I genuinely thought that self-love would save me
I thought if I could love myself, I would wake up with unshakable confidence, never feel insecure again, and be lovable.
It was the same way I treated glow up in my teenage years
I believed losing weight would make me feel worthy and lovable.
I made self-love into a genie, that would grant me everything I wanted: the perfect life, the constant happiness, the love I wanted
Looking back now: WOW
Yes, self-love will change you; it will give you the courage to better yourself
, to grow, to heal, to leap, but you will still face problems because that is life.
You will go through setbacks, bad days, moments of insecurity
Self-love won’t necessarily keep toxic partners out of your life.
However, it will give you the strength to stop letting them in and kick them out.
The takeaway here: many people(myself included) approached self-love and improvement believing it would remove pain, insecurity, or loneliness, believing it would provide relief
I am not saying this to discourage you.
It is a beautiful journey, but all I am saying is not to think it is a tool that will magically fix everything
Self-acceptance means liking everything about myself
I felt I had to like everything about myself to accept myself.
So I forced myself, but spoiler alert: it didn’t work
It took time to understand what self-acceptance truly means
Self-acceptance means to acknowledge reality without denial or self-hate
To take an honest look at yourself, acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses
To be okay with where you are right now, knowing you are worthy regardless
Change is okay as long as it isn’t coming from a place of unworthiness and shame
Changing something you dislike about yourself is okay; dislike doesn’t necessarily mean it stems from shame
It might simply not resonate with your personality or preferences
Maybe you have outgrown habits, or perhaps they clash with your current values
A dislike that stems from shame is rooted in comparison; it is tied to the belief that I am not good enough unless I change this.
So, why does it matter where the change stems from, whether it is shame or not, if I can change it?
Because it will backfire
It attacks your worth, even if you change
Your mindset will look for another target to shame
It creates a punishment cycle
This pressure will lead to burnout and rebound behaviors, and you will be stuck in a cycle :
Get motivated out of fear – do everything you can – feel like nothing is enough – burn out – restart again
If you are suffering from shame, the antidote is usually self-compassion
I recommend healing the shame that binds you by John Bradshaw and books by the author brene brown
The takeaway: self-acceptance is basically a reality check without judgment or shame
That’s how self-acceptance and improvement aren’t as counterintuitive as they first seem
When you are okay with where you are and know that you are worthy, regardless
It makes improvement easier because you aren’t rushing or conditioning yourself
You might have heard people saying that once they accepted themselves, everything became much easier
That is because they no longer resist their current circumstances
I have to fix myself
This one could be a little bit sneaky because we use it in our language daily without paying attention
When we keep saying I have to fix myself, we are telling ourselves we are broken and we need fixing
I kept pressuring myself to do the inner work consistently, and somehow, I unconsciously made it a condition
I have to heal everything before I permit myself to live
That I have to ‘fix’ everything
Inner work is important, but the question is: ”for how long ” before we can live life normally
How long to be in the moment, not rush the process to look for another broken thing inside of us to ‘fix’
We are not broken to be fixed
We are humans , we live , we get hurt , we heal , we grow , we thrive
Consuming self-help content without action
Self-improvement content can be addictive
It gives you motivation, making you feel like you are achieving something
It could be an excuse to procrastinate
You keep telling yourself that you are planning, that you want to gather more info
It is okay to consume self-help content, but let’s be honest, the self-improvement world is repetitive
The truth is, you already know what you need to do; you are only distracting yourself
Stop telling yourself that you need to watch this video or that one. No, you don’t
It’s time to apply the knowledge you gained.
I used self-improvement as a condition to deserve my own love
When I started this path, it came from a place of self-hate
I made self-improvement a to-do list: Do inner work, journal, meditate, practice affirmations, and change limiting beliefs.
I thought once I was ”done” with the work
Once I became my desired future self, I could finally love myself and approve of who I saw in the mirror
I didn’t realize at the time that my journey was built on a foundation of conditional love
That is why, along with other reasons, I was stuck in this loop of starting and quitting.
My motivation wasn’t for growth
But rather, the attempt to close the gap between who I was and who I thought I had to be to be worthy
It looked like: If I lose this amount of weight, then I will accept myself
If I became the best version of myself, then I can love myself.
The love and acceptance I wanted were always attached to the next goal
Self-love was always out of reach, and the present self was never enough
I made self-love conditional and attached my self-worth to productivity
I could never arrive; the finishing line kept moving
It caused burnout.
When your worth is tied to productivity & outcome, you set yourself up for failure because you will face the inevitable setbacks
With this mentality, they become proof of inadequacy
This only fuels the shame and self-criticism
To be honest, I am still learning how to break free from this conditional love pattern
When you grew up with this kind of love, it’sn’t easy to break
Especially when you have never experienced unconditional love, so you don’t know what that looks like, but I am taking baby steps
So what to do?
First:
recognize that conditional love thought when it surfaces, the if/then statement, and reframe it
For example, turn ” if I became my best self, then I can accept myself ” to “I am accepting who I am right now ”
Second :
Practice Self-compassion for when that inner critic comes online, you can even give it a name, to distance yourself from it
Third:
Reparent your inner child; this is the core inner work
Teach that child that they are loved no matter what
The trap of the ”perfect day”
I used to have this expectation of how my day should be
This picture-perfect day, with my to-do list checked off
Every moment being productive, if it didn’t go how I wanted, I thought I had failed. This was my perfectionism
The problem is the gap between this expectation and the reality,
which is: self-improvement isn’t linear, and you will have bad days
By demanding that every day should be this flawless, perfect day, I was setting myself up for disappointment
A single bad day doesn’t mean failure; it can’t just erase the days you were disciplined
On the path of self-improvement, you notice your patterns, learn as you go, and treat yourself with patience along the way
These are the mistakes that slowed me down, but also taught me about my patterns and how growth happens
I hope sharing them helps you spot these mistakes early on and move forward with more clarity
And if you are doing them now, you are aware, and that is the first crucial step to move forward.