Do you feel like the relationship with yourself is not how you would like it to be? Well following Valentine’s Day I will share three tips to improve your relationship with yourself and therefore your relationship with others.
This was something I used to struggle with a lot, both personally and professionally. When things went well I would dismiss it, but things went badly there would be constant criticism ‘useless’ ‘pathetic’ ‘stupid’… now I use terms like ‘I am awesome’ ‘what a legend’.
I’ve worked with coaching clients on this too, who at first looked so much from the external world to get validation to be liked, instead of working on this for themselves. The transformation I’ve seen in mine and others lives when we work on building and continually developing a strong relationship with ourselves makes such a difference.
So why do we struggle to build a good relationship with ourselves?
From a young age we require parents or guardians to help us survive. There comes a point though where we aren’t provided everything we want in minutes. We have to grow up, we have to become more individual. The early years of our lives also create the beliefs we have from ourselves from our environment. Even if you are brought up in a loving environment, a single moment can create a belief that can create a negative relationship with yourself.
For example a father shouting at a three year old boy ‘You’re stupid and useless’ from a highly emotional day, which is completely out of character from his usual loving self. But he’s had a tough week at work and his three year old has created a huge mess in the living room.
The boy then creates a subconscious belief that is stored away that he’s ‘not good enough’ ‘stupid’ ‘useless’ which in turn creates a negative relationship with himself. This could be stored away for years with the boy growing up with a negative relationship with himself.
The good news… we have the choice to transform our relationships with ourselves at any time. In this blog we won’t go into subconscious programming but I highly recommend you check out the work of Bruce Lipton or Marisa Peer for more on this.
Today, here are three things to ask yourself regularly to create a good quality relationship with yourself…
Time – are you giving yourself enough time?
In each of these think about it like you’re looking after the three year old of you, or perhaps you have a child or younger sibling.
Ask yourself this ‘If I didn’t give my younger me any of or gave minimal amount of my time to focus, how would they feel?’
Perhaps you’d think: neglected, not loved, not valued.. This list could go on.
That’s exactly the message you are sending yourself when you don’t give yourself quality time to do what you want to do or don’t listen to yourself.
So think about how you could give yourself more time.
Effort – are you putting in effort with yourself?
This is similar to time but slightly differs. We may have seen instances and we’re all guilty of it, of not really being present in a situation with a friend or loved one. Especially with the invention of mobile phones which reduce people’s quality in communication. Text messaging is not real communication!
Anyway… imagine being with the three year old version of you and not really putting in any effort or commitment to make them feel they are important.
Again how do you think they would feel? Lonely, neglected, not worthy.
Well when you don’t put good quality attention on yourself from time to time… these again are the messages you are sending yourself.
Ask yourself how can you be more present and put more effort in with yourself?
Money – are you investing and looking after you?
Money! An interesting one to add on. Though there are a number of views and beliefs about money, we won’t go deep into them here. This point is the idea that investing into yourself to care and grow yourself will only strengthen your relationship. We are not talking thousands of dollars or pounds here!
Going back to the three year old version of you. If you didn’t care for them at all, even if you had the power to, how do you think they would feel?
Yes I appreciate we all have different incomes and financial situations but if you spent your money on things you really didn’t need instead of giving to your child (even something small) how would they feel? Not valued, not worth it?
This is the message you are sending yourself. I can share that I’ve invested so much in myself into my own development even when I didn’t have the money. I found a way and that only built my relationship stronger, telling myself that I am worth it. The times when I let the fear part of the mind come up with excuses that it was too expensive (even though I could have been more resourceful) I made the relationship with myself worse. Of course there are times when things are completely out of the question to invest in but only you know for you when that’s genuinely the case.
Where in your life could you invest more into yourself? Even a small amount if you really thought about it.
Conclusion
So today we’ve looked at three ways to strengthen your relationship with yourself. Think about the three year old version of you in terms of time, effort and money. It’s your decision and only your decision in how you treat yourself, but as you are going to be with yourself 100% of your life do you think it’s a relationship worth focusing on?
By Jonny Pardoe
Podcast Host, Confidence & Podcast Coach and Author
© The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset Ltd February 2022
E-mail: [email protected]
Instagram / Facebook / TikTok: @jonny.pardoe
LinkedIn: Jonny Pardoe
YouTube: youtube.com/c/JonnyPardoe
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor: The Self Esteem and Confidence Mindset
Amazon: Jonny Pardoe
Website: jonnypardoe.com
