It is easy to be your own most prominent critic, but you can be your biggest fan as well. Self-love is an important thing to master so that you can have optimal mental health. Treating yourself with care and compassion enables you to feel great about yourself so that you can be a valuable person to the world. You become what you think about, and if you are a friend to yourself, you will see yourself as beautiful.
In this article, we look at the different ways in which you can be a friend to yourself. These strategies can be improved little by little every day, and you should document your progress. Self-love is not an end goal or destination, but it is a process that gets mastered over time. As you show yourself, love, you will attract other friendly people into your life. You are a fun person, so be your own best friend first!
Appreciate Your Unique Skill Set
Every human on this earth was created differently in some way. There is something special about you, and you should make yourself aware of this daily. Instead of worrying about comparing yourself to others, appreciate your unique qualities and traits. No one’s path is identical because we all have a different collection of experiences. These events shaped you into who you are, so you should be appreciative too.
First, you should write down everything great about you. Are you passionate about a particular topic, or what your hobbies? You could also write about specific instances in life where you overcame a challenge or solved a big issue. It is also essential to idea areas in life in which you have greatly improved. Maybe there is an area where you think you could improve now, and you want to work on that yourself.
This first step in being your own best friend is gratitude. Surrounding your mindset thankfulness gives you the motivation to create art, spend time with yourself, and improve your life in some way. You can achieve this through your unique set of skills and aspirations, so tap into that quickly.
Don’t Waste Energy Trying to Be Accepted by Others
If we are always worried about what others think of us, we are taking away energy from being accepted by ourselves. The first person you should become like is your highest self, not other people. If we conform to what other people are doing, we cannot tap into our real personality or skill set. Once you choose the right set of friends, you will not need to worry about diverting from your real identity.
Before we spend time with other people, we must master ourselves and discover who we indeed are. The people who you surround yourself with will influence you into the person you become, so you want to find yourself first. You will slowly attract people to you who are genuine because they will appreciate who you are. But first, fill out a list of activities that will bring you closer to your higher self.
Once you gain the peace of only being accepted by yourself, you will feel more at ease and happy to spend time with yourself. You will be fully present and not worried about others. You can dedicate full energy to making the most out of your time with yourself, which will make you appreciate your unique attributes.
Journal Daily
You need to create valuable time in your day to write out your thoughts in a journal. These sessions serve as conversations with yourself, and it will allow you to connect more intimately with your mind. It is one thing to mull over ideas in your head but putting them out into existence will make them clearer from your perspective. Self-authoring can also be used as a valuable accountability tool.
There are many topics that you can write about to expand your mind. When you have grand visions or goals that pop into your head, you need to write them down quickly so that you can expand on them later. You can write about areas in which you are improving, or struggles you are dealing with in life. When you want to confide in yourself, outline it on paper so that you can better organize everything.
You can also use your journal to congratulate yourself on daily accomplishments. It is pleasant to receive compliments and praise from others, but you have the best vantage point of your life journey. Honor yourself for a skill you have improved upon or a tough event or situation that you handled well that day. A journal is also a fun reading to go back and reflect on years down the road.
Do Not Compare Yourself to Other People
You are a unique person, which means your success journal is also one of a kind. In a world of social media and online profiles, it is easier than ever to peek into the lives and activities of others. This perspective causes us to compare what we have to others. This comparison could also leave us wanting more money, better material objects, and other things that do not have real meaning.
You need to take note of all the positive things in your life, especially your personality. You should strive to compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to how others are today. Everyone has different environmental conditions and success paths. You should forget about what is happening around you and control your destiny through hard work, satisfying leisure, and a mindset of gratitude.
Each day you should admire how far you have come in this life and congratulate yourself. You can do this through activities that make you happier and healthier. It all begins with your mindset about your success path. Ignore the routes of others and focus on creating a life that is worth living in your eyes.
Teach Yourself New Skills and Information
It is often said that the more you learn, the more you earn. A great way to be a friend to yourself is to read and digest new information. In an online and digital age, there are more avenues than ever for higher learning. If you focus on subjects in which you are passionate about, you can deep dive for hours on educating yourself on something that makes you a more valuable human being.
In addition to reading articles and books, you can also spend extended time watching YouTube videos on enlightening topics that you are interested in. You can take notes on these things and review them for later. You can turn learning and education into a fun, engaging process that allows you to enjoy your time to yourself. There are many subscription channels on humor, personal development, and interviews.
When you learn new information, it is equally essential for you to apply it to your own life. As you practice these things you learn, you can document your progress and make it into a personal game for yourself. If you are watching videos on body language, you can practice this with your communication and look for it in others. The sky is the limit to improve your self-love with self-education.
Embrace Your Mistakes
One of the most important things to do as your own best friend is to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make. Whenever we make a mistake, it is not about the fault itself but how we view it. Failing in life is necessary for you to grow as a person and improve. It is up to you to forgive yourself about a mistake, tell yourself that it will be okay, and then create a plan for how you will not repeat the error.
If you always strive to be perfect, you will feel like you are coming up short. This mindset will leave you feeling empty inside. You should view mistakes, not to an end, but a small learning opportunity on the path to success. The most accomplished people in the world failed many times. NO matter what, there will be times in life where you will be the only one who believes in yourself.
You should also work on removing imposter syndrome from your life. This habit is where you always put yourself down, even when you did something well. You need to look for opportunities for improvement, but also take the time to congratulate yourself for improving in some way. Ensure that you are focusing on ways to transition from being your most prominent critic to be your biggest fan.
Congratulate Yourself on Your Successes
Positive affirmations are essential if you want to work on being your best friend. If you consistently feed seeds of positivity into your brain, your mind will slowly begin to believe it. You will transform yourself into what you often think about, and this benefit comes from your ability to congratulate yourself on your big success moments. These times can be big or small, but it takes proper self-awareness to recognize.
When you journal each day, you can put this into practice. It is one thing to congratulate yourself mentally, but you can make it more deliberate when you say it out loud or write it on paper. Focus on simple, but significant, positive affirmations that you can tell. A great one that encompasses everything would be, “I am happy, I am healthy, and I am able.” Say this every morning when you wake up and see the benefits.
You should also focus your journaling on improvement tracks. In your writings, you should identify your weaknesses or specific things that you would like to improve about yourself. As you go throughout your typical day, put your lessons into practice with your work and relationship with others. Recognize these moments when you stepped outside of your comfort zone to better yourself.
Exercise and Engage in a Sport
There is no better way to keep yourself entertained than to engage in a sport on your own. You can pick many games to play by yourself, or participate in physical exercise, including:
- Basketball
- Soccer
- Tennis
- Golf
- Lifting weights
- Running on the treadmill
Even if it is just a matter of taking a walk outside, the habit of exercise can be an excellent way for you to improve your mental health in a solo manner. When you exercise, your brain releases chemicals called endorphins, which promote positive moods and well-being. If you deliberately schedule time daily to challenge yourself physically, your self-esteem will rise, and you will become a better friend to yourself.
Exercising or playing a sport by yourself can also be soothing because you can play music while you do so. Music or a podcast will send you into another world that allows you to dedicate 100% focus to the task at hand. You will forget you need to have a friend if you immerse yourself in an activity. Sport also enables you to track your progress in a specific area and keep yourself accountable to reach your fitness goals.
Honor Your Needs
If you are a true best friend to yourself, you will always work to put your personal needs above everything else. We are not talking about being selfish or anything here, but you need to listen to your body when it is telling you something important. Our minds and bodies are only trained to take a certain level of stress and physical toll, and sometimes our vision gets too cloudy to become self-aware.
A key component in your needs is sleep. Some people can function on less than seven hours of sleep, but it is not healthy for you in the long run. There are a couple of signs you should look for when your body is starting to breakdown from not enough sleep. You will start to become moody or irritable, and your caffeine intake may increase, your decision-making may be lagging, or you might even feel depressed.
If you saw a true friend with lower energy, you would encourage them to take it easy, which is what you should also do with yourself. You should also strive to continue to put healthy foods into your body, which will give you the necessary energy to make a difference in the world. Focus on foods that are lower in sugar, higher in nutrients, and lower in calories. Your main priority is to treat your body like a temple.
Be Honest with Yourself
Part of being a trustworthy best friend is to not lie to yourself. You must have the self-awareness through all your endeavors. This mindset includes you having tough conversations with yourself about areas of improvement. Often the one thing that holds is back is us, our confidence, and our inability to take an honest look at ourselves and address a flaw that is holding us back in life.
As you take the opportunity to journal and write out your thoughts, identify a list of the things you are skilled at, and not so skilled at. Go through the list of “cons” and address why you are not good at that thing. Once you have narrowed down a top-five, think about specific areas of your life, your job, and your relationships where you could practice and become better.
By looking for critical areas of betterment for yourself, you are taking your friendship to another level and serving as a self-mentor. Your self-audit is not meant to criticize yourself, but to help your brand and ability to make the world a better place. Your future self and the people around you will appreciate your improvement and inclination for self-improvement.
Treat Yourself as if You Were Already Someone You Liked
An essential aspect of being your own best friend is how you view yourself. Your perception of yourself shapes your self-care process. That is why you must treat yourself as if you were someone else you already liked, loved, and would care for. This mindset puts things into perspective because we are often hard on ourselves, but we are willing to go the extra mile for the essential people in our lives.
Ask yourself how you would care for a parent or sibling who is sick and ailing? You would make sure they got all their nutrients through food and drink. You would ensure that they received the necessary amount of sleep. You would want what is best for them and make sure they improve. If you treated yourself with the same care and respect daily, you would reach a new height thanks to your accountability and passion.
You also need to encourage yourself when you need it the most. When a friend is down on themselves, you will give them the praise and kind words to raise their mood. You should not view yourself as you are currently, but what your skills and offerings can become in the future. Use your other friendships as a real benchmark for how you should care for yourself and your motivations.
Work Hard, Play Hard
You need to reward yourself for your hard work whenever you can. When you take time to do things that provide healthy enjoyment for you, this improves your mental health. You must develop a self-reward system that you can use to incentivize yourself to get work done. This motivation could include watching a movie, eating a snack, or treating yourself to a nice dinner at a beautiful restaurant.
As we go through life and see the success of others, it is easy for us to fantasize about the beautiful houses, fancy cars, and what a life with extra money could bring you. But if you focus on maximizing the next 24 hours instead of looking far ahead, you will enjoy the process a lot more. Focus on setting short, daily goals that are easy to obtain instead of obsessing over the long term goals a lot of the time.
You should set goals of different timelines and nature but give yourself checkpoint rewards along the way. When you make time to celebrate the small wins, this will keep you on track a lot more efficiently. You will appreciate the little efforts that go into your success path, and you will be able to motivate yourself more consistently. Install a “work hard, play hard mindset,” and your journey will be energizing.
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
When you spend extended time by yourself, it is reasonable to abide by a strict schedule and routine. We, as humans, love predictability, and we love feeling safe in our environments. But it is also essential to ask yourself if you are satisfied with your results, productivity, and happiness. If you see an area of improvement needed in your life, it could be useful to change something up.
It is healthy for you to bring a fresh perspective to your daily and weekly activities. By trying something new and getting out of your comfort zone, you can get to know yourself a lot better. You could expose yourself to different places, cultures, and people. Solo travel to different cities or countries enables you to navigate something new or experience being lone for a long time.
You should make it a personal goal to try something new each week. As you become more flexible, you could move this to every day. You cannot reach your full potential until you become a little uncomfortable. As you stretch your horizons, you will develop healthy self-reliance and independence. This mindset will provide you a sense of openness to the attitude and motivations of others around you too.
Listen to Music that Makes You Feel Good
Music has a unique impact on you because it enables you to connect with your emotions intimately. You can be a valuable friend to yourself by setting aside time to sit, reflect, and let the music bring you creativity. Just like meditation, great music can put you in a space that promotes free thought. Specific tunes can help you channel a previous event that provided you with happiness or other strong emotions.
With the power of music platforms like Spotify, you can curate your playlists that satisfy a specific need or situation. If you want to experience an instrumental playlist while studying or reading, you can do that. If you want a playlist for happiness or gratitude, you can also create that. By providing yourself a release from your daily activities through melodies, you will be a much happier person overall.
Along with music, you can also make time to listen to podcasts. Radio shows like these are the perfect tool for learning, laughter, and enrichment. The best presentations are the ones that enable you to develop a virtual relationship with the host. Podcasts, like music, offer you a valuable escape and relief from a stressful job, project, or physically demanding day.
Get Rid of Bad Habits
Another way to increase your self-awareness and be a better friend to yourself is to cut off bad habits. First, you must define what a harmful pattern looks like. As you do a self-audit of yourself and your activities, focus on areas that make you less healthy physically, emotionally, and mentally. Try also to pinpoint the events and people that do not move you closer to your goals. These sources might be tough to find.
You do not necessarily need to cut off everything at once, but you should look for opportunities for small changes and improvements. Bad habits do not get broken overnight, but they get eliminated through a consistent process of restraint. If you show yourself that you can cut off bad habits, this gives you the strength and confidence to make better decisions in the future.
As you endure this journey, you should hold yourself accountable by writing everything down. The best way to do this is to track your progress through a journal. If you are trying to be a better communicator, write down the methods that you will implement before the day starts, and then go back and reflect on how well you did. Be a good friend to yourself and congratulate yourself on significant strides.
Conclusion: Become the Best Version of Yourself
As you can see, there are many activities and mindsets that you can implement to be your own best friend. You should work to find enjoyment out of the small things in life, and don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. We live in an exciting world with opportunities for learning and growth, entertainment, and health.
The most important thing to remember is how beautiful you are. You should remind yourself of this daily. The extended time that you spend by yourself could be an excellent refresher for you. Throughout your journey, you could find out new things about yourself and use them to your advantage. Other people will respect you for staying true to who you are, which will also motivate them to be your friend.