Loving others is easy when compared to loving yourself. For the longest time, you may have thought that love only gives and never takes. The truth is, you also deserve love and should be getting it, if not from everyone, at least from yourself.
Self-love is important for your total well-being. It affects your perspective on yourself and how you relate to others. It could help you live a happier and more productive life.
It’s a situation where you believe in yourself and are comfortable in your own company.
In the absence of self-love, you could get into toxic relationships and form toxic habits; your health could deteriorate; and you would never get to live out your best life.
The amount of love you give yourself can be greatly influenced by your childhood experiences. If you grew up in a home or environment where you were bullied, abused, or neglected, it could determine how much self-worth you have and, in turn, how much compassion you show yourself and others.
If you don’t love yourself, who will?
The reason you don’t love yourself could be due to a distorted belief because of what people say to you over time or the picture-perfect life sold to you by life or social media.
In this article, you’ll get to see the telltale signs you don’t love yourself. We haven’t written this to condemn or judge you but to make you aware and set you on the path to loving yourself for who you are.
We truly believe that when you allow yourself to love you, you unlock a key factor in your happiness and productivity.
Signs You Don’t Love Yourself
1. You are always hard on yourself
If you struggle to forgive yourself when you make a mistake or fail at a job, you are most likely struggling with loving yourself.
You beat yourself up so hard when you are not perfect. You constantly ruminate over past mistakes, failures, and rejections and constantly blame yourself for things that went wrong in your life, even when they were beyond your control.
Sometimes, you can’t put up with yourself. You think you have too many flaws.
You are your first and worst critic, and can’t seem to find anything to commend yourself for. These commendable things are obvious to the world, but you just can’t look beyond your imperfections to see them.
2. You attract toxic people
Deeply rooted in a lack of self-love is low self-worth. You do not think there is so much to you.
The thing is, people will treat you based on the value they perceive you to have placed on yourself. And when that value is low, you attract toxic people and friends.
These partners take you for granted, manipulate you, and further injure your already broken self-image.
And you often cling to them because they give you some level of validation without minding the accompanying abuse. If you often find yourself in such a situation then it’s likely a sign you don’t love yourself.
3. You apologize unnecessarily
Do you find that you impulsively apologize even for things that you didn’t do or at any slight instance? Do you apologize for other people’s mistakes or for things you know nothing about?
It could be a sign that you don’t love yourself and are doing everything to make sure that people like you. You are seeking external validation to feel good about yourself.
You apologize to make sure you are in good standing with everyone, as you can’t stand to see anyone offended at you.
It could also be because you set high standards for yourself and then apologize for every little mistake because you feel you are not meeting your own standards.
You don’t give yourself grace and allow yourself to be human.
4. You feel guilty when you take out time for yourself
Taking time out for yourself is a good way to take care of yourself, recoup, and come back stronger.
Taking time out to relax, go out with your friends, take a nap, read a good book, exercise, or watch comedy releases the feel-good hormone endorphin, which calms you down and reduces stress and anxiety.
For someone who doesn’t love themselves, whenever they try to get away from the noise of life, they are plagued with guilt.
You feel guilty because you think you should continue working or caring for others, never mind that it could be detrimental to your health and peace.
You sometimes think it’s because you are lazy or selfish and can’t push yourself to do more, always condemning yourself for unnecessary things.
Sometimes, not only do you feel guilty about self-care, but you could neglect it entirely. You may skip meals or eat unhealthy food in large quantities, turn to alcohol or hard drugs, or engage in inappropriate sexual behaviors.
This can easily be traced back to the value you place on yourself. If you value yourself, you will put in the effort to care for your physical and mental health.
5. You are overly conscious of what others think
You are conscious of other people’s opinions about you. You believe that people are closely watching your actions, words, attitude, dress, and reasoning and might be criticizing you.
This greatly affects what you do and how you act around people. You do everything in your power to conform to the image that you imagine people expect of you.
You may also not be able to make decisions for yourself because you are wondering what people are going to say and if they will find your decisions logical.
Sometimes these feelings have no basis and could affect your relationship with others as well as your right to choice and identity.
6. You always doubt yourself
Do you second-guess your choices and abilities? Do you constantly feel like you aren’t good enough? Are you mostly confused because you are afraid or unsure?
Then you are probably struggling with self-love.
With self-love, you cheer yourself on to greater heights; you are your greatest fan. You easily let go of past mistakes and press on to see what the future holds.
You quickly sort through your inner feelings and figure out what to do whenever a situation presents itself. You know what you are capable of and are willing to learn new things.
The opposite is true when you haven’t gotten to the point where you love yourself.
You constantly diminish your accomplishments and never take time out to appreciate yourself.
And since you are your worst critic, you do not believe in yourself. If there was a call to step up and tackle the given assignment, even though you are armed with the skill set and intelligence to handle the task, you wouldn’t opt for it because you doubted yourself.
Think of the many things that you have deprived yourself of by not having a cordial relationship with yourself.
7. You always seek affirmations and approvals
Since you are not comfortable in your own skin, you constantly seek external affirmation from people.
You are constantly looking for people to validate your ideas and opinions. While this may be good, it could keep you from taking risks and venturing out on your own. And then you miss out on the opportunity to grow by taking such risks.
Seeking approval excessively also keeps you from reaching your dreams and goals. If the people you want to give you the go-ahead to pursue your dreams and goals don’t find them good enough, you’ll throw them away.
Not only do you excessively seek approval, but you also look to others to affirm your worth, beauty, and intelligence. The effects of these affirmations usually last temporarily, so you keep going back for more.
You haven’t come to the point where you know who you are and accept yourself as you are.
8. You settle for less
When you don’t know your self-worth and doubt your strengths, you become someone who thinks they don’t deserve the good things in life. And so you settle for less than you should.
For fear of rejection and failure, for fear of what people will say, you give up on your dreams.
The only problem underneath the pile of self-discouragement and a feeling of worthlessness is the skill set and intelligence needed to accomplish great things. If only you could reach for them, you’d be well on your way to greatness.
And guess what? Those skillsets are hidden in books, trainings, classes, courses, etc. Build yourself up, develop your mental capacity, and take hold of those great things you’ve dreaded in life.
9. You feel inferior to others
One sign that you don’t love yourself is that you have this nagging inferiority complex.
You are hyper-aware of other people’s perfection, successes, good looks, good fortunes, and skills. You think that they are better than you, and you could never measure up, no matter how hard you tried.
You are constantly comparing yourself to others, and you forget that we all have unique gifts and skills. This further drives you down the path of loathing yourself.
You ruminate over people’s negative comments about you, paying very little attention to the good things that they commend in your life.
You also have negative conversations with yourself because of the perspective you have on yourself. You pay little attention to your gifts, preferences, and opinions. What’s the remedy? Redirect your focus now to the positives about you and pay less attention to other people’s opinions of you. You have to believe in the greatness in you too.
And sometimes the process may be hard because you’ve believed lies for a long time, and they’re difficult to unlearn. You may want to add affirmations and positive confessions and employ the power of words to activate that greatness in you. Never affirm negativity in yourself; stay positive.
10. You hide your real-self from people
Masking is hiding your true personality from others and taking up the identity of the people around you at a given point in time.
You may not feel good about certain aspects of your life and may choose to cover them up so others won’t judge or downplay you.
You hide your true identity, all the while wishing you were someone else. You don’t open up to people because you don’t want them to discover your flaws. And so you always wear a mask, shape-shifting to fit the personality you perceive people would want you to have. If you are always concerned about what people will say, then it’s obvious you still depend on others for your happiness and don’t love yourself.
Get away from that mess by consciously and mentally choosing to pay less attention to other people’s opinions about you and starting to draw your own conclusions through mindfulness and meditation. Shift that energy from others to within you.
Practice mindfulness and meditation. It’s a great way to discover yourself and live out your own reality and not others’
11. You may have troubled relationships
Most of the attributes of a person who doesn’t love themselves could be overbearing on the relationships in their lives.
You usually feel unworthy of love and that your partner is too good for you.
Excessively seeking attention and affirmation from friends could become tiring, as they assume you should be yourself and contribute meaningfully to the relationship.
You may also cut people out because you don’t want them to uncover your flaws. But there’s no relationship where there’s no openness.
Your communication could also be affected because people who don’t love themselves also struggle with articulating what is on their mind. You are conscious of what others think of you and whether what you have to say has any value.
All these and many more could lead to instability in your relationship. To be able to give love, you must first possess it. You can’t give what you don’t have. If you love yourself first, then you can love your neighbor as yourself.
12. You are a people-pleaser
As I said earlier, people who don’t love themselves are usually people-pleasers. Their lives revolve around meeting other people’s needs and standards.
They devalue their perspectives and opinions and adopt those of others. They do everything within their power to ensure other people are happy, often at the expense of their own happiness.
I’ve also given the solution: start shifting the dynamic and energy from others to you! At first, they may feel offended that you aren’t relying on them for advice and help, but it’s for your future and happiness. Develop yourself and keep building.
Getting to love yourself takes time, intention, and effort. After reading through these signs you don’t love yourself, we hope you get to see how much you are missing out on and will take deliberate steps to love you.
If you feel like you are struggling with self-love and need further help, kindly connect with a mentor or see a professional.
You are worthy of love.
