Simple (But Really Effective) Self-Love Strategies You Can Start Today
I was working a table at a mental health fundraiser recently, asking everyone who stopped by the same question: ‘What do you love most about yourself?’
Men. Women. Twenty-somethings, sixty-somethings, people who looked like they had it all together. Almost every single one of them froze. Not a ‘give me a second to narrow it down’ pause — a genuine, stuck-for-words freeze. Quite a few told me straight up they couldn’t answer at all.
I wasn’t asking for twenty things. Not even ten. Just one. And that’s the problem worth talking about: naming something you love about yourself should be the easy part, and for most of us, it isn’t.
If that’s you too, you’re not broken and you’re not alone. You’re also not stuck there. Below are the self-love strategies I talk my clients and podcast listeners through — simple, doable, and things you can start using today.
Why Your Relationship With Yourself Is the One That Matters Most
Think about the people you love most — your best friend, your mum, your partner. You could probably list twenty things you love about them without much thought. Here’s the thing that gets missed: none of those relationships are guaranteed to be constant. People move, drift, or aren’t around forever, as much as we hope otherwise.
You know who is guaranteed to be around? You. You’re the one relationship you can’t opt out of, which makes it the most important one you have — and yet it’s usually the one we invest in least. We make time for date nights and phone calls to mum, but we talk to ourselves like an enemy, avoid mirrors, and punish ourselves for what we ate. That’s a relationship most of us wouldn’t accept from anyone else.
Speak To Yourself Like You Would A Friend
Here’s a simple litmus test: if you wouldn’t say it to your best friend, don’t say it to yourself. Notice how you talk to (or about) your body and your choices day to day. If it’s harsher than how you’d speak to someone you love, that’s the first thing to shift — not because ‘positive thinking’ fixes everything, but because the way you talk to yourself becomes the way you treat yourself.
Focus On What You Love, Not What You Don't
There’s a reason this feels hard at first: your brain is wired to notice what it’s already focused on. It’s the same reason you buy a white car and suddenly see white cars everywhere — they didn’t multiply, you just started noticing them. This is your reticular activating system at work, and you can point it wherever you choose.
Start naming one thing you love (or, if that word feels like too much right now, one thing you like) about yourself every single day. It won’t feel natural at first. Give it time. The more you look for it, the more you’ll find — and the easier it becomes.
Date Yourself The Way You'd Date Someone You Love
You probably put more effort into your relationships with other people than you do into your relationship with yourself — date nights, thoughtful gestures, quality time. Start doing the same for you.
What makes you feel loved, worthy, or genuinely good? That’s different for everyone, so find your version. A pamper night. A walk in nature. Cooking yourself a proper meal instead of another sad desk lunch. If you want a shortcut, take the 5 love languages quiz and work out how to speak that language to yourself.
Invest In Yourself Without Apologising For It
So many of the women I work with put everyone else’s needs above their own by default — partners, kids, friends, work — until there’s nothing left for themselves. I had a coaching client tell me when we started that she couldn’t spare five minutes a day for herself. She was overwhelmed, snapping at her kids, and completely last on her own list.
She started small anyway. In her own words: ‘my attitude changed and my smile came back, I was calm and the yelling and getting frustrated at my kids slowly disappeared.’ She didn’t just feel better — her marriage improved, her relationship with her kids improved, and she started saying ‘yes’ to herself instead of just everyone else.
That’s the ripple effect of prioritising yourself: it doesn’t take anything away from the people you love. It gives them a better version of you. If you want support building that relationship with yourself, this is exactly the kind of shift I work through with clients in 1:1 coaching.
Where To Start
You don’t need to overhaul your life overnight. Pick one of these self-love strategies — the daily ‘one thing I love’ practice is the easiest place to start — and give it a real shot before adding the next.
You are your number one most important relationship. You’re allowed to start treating yourself like it.
Jemma Rose is a Body Image and Confidence Speaker, Educator based in Hobart, Tasmania. After 16 years stuck in the diet cycle, she now helps women build confidence and self-worth that has nothing to do with the size of their body.
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