5 Myths That Stop You Loving and Accepting Yourself

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Do you love and accept yourself? Did you answer YES, need to think about it, or was the answer a resounding NO?

If you answered No or Maybe perhaps there are some self-love myths that are holding you back from accepting yourself.

Let’s dive into 5 myths that may stop you from loving and accepting yourself. See if any of these ring a bell.

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Myth # 1 – The perfect life

Do you feel your life has to be ‘perfect’ before you can start loving and accepting yourself?

Are you looking at other people and thinking they have a perfect life? Do you tell yourself that when your life looks like theirs you will be finally accepting of yourself?

You might be admiring someone’s social media profile with their gorgeous clothes, fancy house, money, exotic travel, and active social life. They look so confident and together.

You think when my life is that perfect I will finally love myself.

Let’s tear this big old messy myth down shall we!

For starters, no one’s life is perfect. Everyone has challenges they have to deal with and setbacks they need to overcome and work through. Everyone!

Look at all of the celebrities over the years that have had what we perceive to be amazing lives and yet they have destroyed their lives with self-destructive behavior all based around the fact they didn’t like, love, or accept themselves.

There is nothing perfect about that!

Ditch the notion of perfection (which doesn’t actually exist because people want and appreciated different things) and move towards a mindset of compassion, love, and acceptance.

Struggling with being a perfectionist, these books can help.

Myth # 2 – The easy life

This is similar to the one above with a slightly different slant. You might not think someone’s life is perfect, but you might think they have had it easy.

You might think everything comes easily to them.

On the outside, it might not look like they have had to struggle, make sacrifices or even work or try all that hard.

You might even think something like – They haven’t been through what I have!

Both of the above myths are based on comparing yourself to other people. You will struggle to love and accept yourself if you are constantly comparing yourself to someone else and feeling like you are coming up short.

Comparison (not to mention making a lot of assumptions that most likely are not true) is killing your joy in life.

This is YOUR life. This is about YOU. Forget about what other people are doing and focus all of your energy on yourself and what you want to be doing! Ditch the comparison. Focus on ramping up your self-love and self-worth.

Related posts that can help with your self-love and self-worth–

Myth # 3 – Waiting for your big ‘when’

If you are waiting for something to happen so you can finally start to love and accept yourself, you’re wasting precious time. Your wasting precious time AND you are not doing yourself justice.

Often we get caught up in the thought that we have to love and accept ourselves when we reach a milestone, goal, or target of some description. We’ll love ourselves when we find a partner and get married, we’ll respect ourselves when we lose weight, we’ll accept ourselves when we get a better job or make more money.

Why wait?

It’s time to ditch the ‘when’ and focus on the NOW and here’s why.

Let’s look at a best-case scenario, you achieve your big goal and you can finally start to love and accept yourself. Great but what about all of the time in between, what about the fact that accepting yourself right from the get-go might have actually helped speed up the time for when you achieved your big ‘when’.

You could feel better about yourself much, much sooner if you just drop this myth.

Not to be a killjoy but there is the other side of the coin. What if you don’t achieve your big ‘when’ goal? Not only will you have wasted your time not accepting yourself but you then have to deal with any fallout. Most likely that fallout will involve beating yourself up emotionally and making yourself feel much worse!

If you love and accept yourself before going in, the fallout won’t be anywhere near as bad. Yes you will probably have to deal with some feelings of disappointment and you may have to put some thought into what comes next but you won’t be tearing yourself to shreds because you know you are worth more than that!

Myth # 4 – A challenge-free life

So you have decided to love and accept yourself when a particular problem in your life resolves itself and everything is back to dare I say it ‘normal’! Or perhaps you are waiting for all of your problems to disappear? Hummmmm.

Not a good idea. More to the point, that’s a terrible idea.

Life will always throw challenges at us in one form or another, that’s just life. Thankfully life also throws a lot of amazing opportunities and joy our way as well!

Here’s the kicker though. It’s not about having a challenge-free life.

Nothing is going to help you through your setbacks and challenges in life more than being able to love and accept yourself. A strong sense of knowing your own worth is what will get you through hard times.

Related posts to help you stay confident when things get tough –

Myth #5 – Not striving for improvement

Just because you love and accept yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t want to improve your life.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have big goals and dreams for yourself. It doesn’t mean that you have to stick with the way life is right now.

You are allowed to enjoy who you are right now but also have big plans for your future. It’s not one or the other situation.

Come to think of it, the more you love and accept yourself the bigger and bolder your plans will most likely be because you have the confidence and belief in yourself to go for what you want in life.

One of my favorite books for self-improvement and loving your badass self is You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero. I first bought this book on Kindle but loved it so much I bought a paperback copy as well!

If any of these myths are holding you back from loving and accepting yourself, it’s time to kick them to the curb.

Love and accept your strengths, flaws, and everything in between in all its messy and powerful glory!

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends. You never know who might be struggling with one of these myths today!