Do you want to know the secret to a great life? Who doesn’t, right? The answer is right under your nose. It’s both simple and complex at the same time. Deep down, you probably know it already. It’s something that seems so obvious, yet so many people struggle with putting it into practice. The mind-blowing part is that we’re born doing it, but as we learn more about life, we forget how to have a great one. We forget the secret. It gets lost in the pressure of social conditioning. What is this long-lost secret? You have to keep reading to find out!
The Science-Based Evidence
I’m not making wild, unsupported claims here. Before I tell you what the secret to a great life is, let me share with you the evidence that it works. According to science, these are some of the benefits of remembering this secret and putting it into action:
- Improved mental health. I write a lot about the importance of caring for your mental health because it impacts every area of your life, including income, relationships, and physical health.
- This study shows the link between the secret and your mental health.
- Greater self-acceptance. Despite the proven correlation between self-acceptance and feeling like you have a great life, research shows that almost no one is putting this into practice.
- Self-esteem increases. When you feel good about yourself, you make better decisions, leading to a better life. Here’s the proof.
- So does motivation. I think we can agree that the opposite of motivation is procrastination. Practicing this secret decreases procrastination, thereby increasing motivation.
- Stronger determination. The hallmark of determination is continuing when times get hard and practicing problem-solving over quitting.
- Increased self-awareness. Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of your character, feelings, motives, and desires. Science shows it’s one of the components of a successful life, and this secret helps you develop more of it.
- Less anxiety. It should be obvious, but having lower levels of stress and anxiety makes your life a lot better. If you doubt that, read this.
- And you sleep better. To the college kids partying all night before going to lectures and then working a full shift, getting enough sleep is pretty important, and if you don’t get enough you’ll fall apart. Sorry to bear the bad news. The rest of you know this already, right?
Are You Ready For the Secret to a Great Life?
Okay, okay I’ve teased you with it enough. Are you ready to learn what the secret to a great life is? If you read last week’s blog post, you should already know what it is. It’s both emotion and action all at once. It’s so important I created a course about it that’s consumed the last few weeks of my life. The balance Queen gave up all semblance of balance to teach you this secret. My friends and readers, the secret to transforming a miserable or average life into a great one is…
LOVING YOURSELF
Are you surprised? Don’t be. Self-love is the secret to a great life because it’s the secret to healthy relationships and finances. It also contributes to good physical and mental health. People who love themselves are better at making time for the things that fill them up inside because they know they can’t achieve much if they’re running on empty. This leads to better life satisfaction. So, if it’s the secret to a great life, why don’t most people love themselves? To understand that, it’s important to know what self-love is, and what it isn’t.
What Self-Love Is
Put simply, self-love is having a healthy relationship with yourself. There are a lot of terms that many confuse with self-love. I like to think of self-love as an umbrella term that encompasses:
- self-compassion
- self-discipline
- self-care
- self-esteem
- self-control
- self-talk
- self-awareness
- self-development
- self-worth
Loving yourself helps to protect you from:
- self-doubt
- self-sabotage
- self-harm
- addiction
- depression, anxiety, and certain other mental health disorders
What Self-Love Isn’t
Researchers hypothesize that one of the reasons that people fail to love themselves is because they confuse self-love with narcissism, arrogance, and being self-absorbed. Self-love is not any of those things. In fact, all of those negative behaviors that get confused with self-love are rooted in the lack of it. Narcissists are deeply insecure. Arrogance is a mask worn to hide vulnerability. A person that’s self-absorbed has a hard time feeling love toward themselves and others.
Need to Learn How to Love Yourself?
If so, you’re not alone. According to Psychology Today, about 85% of people, or 8.5 out of 10 people, struggle with their relationship with themselves. Until I started actively working on loving myself in 2018, I was one of them. By then I had spent years studying self-development without making a lot of progress. Once I shifted my focus from “fixing” myself to loving myself, my life started to improve dramatically. All those mindset shifts I had been working toward for years suddenly fell into place. My relationships got better, my finances got better, what I do to earn money makes me happier, and I’m able to bounce back from setbacks faster. If you want to transform yourself and your life like I did, sign up for How to Fall in Love With Yourself. It’s an online course you can complete at your own pace. Each day for 14 days you’ll get a lesson and daily practices in your Inbox designed to help you fall in love with your bad self.
If you found this article helpful, can you please share it with someone else you think needs it? It would make my day! I hope I see you back here next Thursday for the last article in my self-love mini-series.
Until Then,
