100 Affirmations for Self-Love and the Benefits of Doing ...

You’ve probably seen affirmations online being touted as a cure-all or at least a method to change your life completely for the better. However, they might sound confusing, useless, or even cheesy. These are all understandable feelings, but affirmations for self-love, in particular, can really show that incremental, consistent changes to one’s mindset can have very noticeable positive effects.

What are self-love affirmations?

An affirmation is a statement that one makes in relation to something they want to accomplish, whether it’s about emotional growth, career growth, or other areas of life. An affirmation isn’t about the desire for the goal, but rather envisioning it as already done. For example, you wouldn’t say “I want to love myself.” Instead, you’d say “I love myself.”

Whether you believe in the Law of Attraction and/or manifesting or not, which has become very popular on the internet, affirmations can be useful to anyone. This includes anyone from the most spiritual of people to the most secular and skeptical.

There are generally two types of introspection and action that can be done in regards to deep-seated beliefs that people have about themselves. One is that people might be able to reverse their negative mental schemas through gratitude and seeing evidence in their life to prove them wrong. For example, if someone thinks that they don’t love themself and that they’re unlovable, they might realize that this is incorrect because they have friends, pets, and family who love them.

Happiness picture quote about living a healthy life: "You spend most of your life inside your head. Make it a nice place to be." — Self-Love starts with you!

On the other hand, there are people that are unable to do this. Instead of applying outside information to their own mental schema, they’ll do the opposite. If someone like this thinks “I don’t love myself” and sees that friends and family love them, they might say “well, they must be lying to me or something, because I’m unlovable and nobody can ever really love and understand me.”

This is not to say that these thought patterns are mutually exclusive, however. Everyone has elements of themselves that they consider using the outside-in approach and vice versa. Some people even apply these different thought patterns to the same characteristics. What affirmations do is limit the power and presence of negative schemas and inside-out negative thought application by changing the person’s thought process itself.

How do you do affirmations?

Well, how you do self-love affirmations depends on what you want to do and what you feel is necessary. The most important part of affirmations is being mindful while doing them, making sure they really sink in. Also, being consistent is vital as well, because when you’re given a repeated message, you’ll probably start to believe it. Think about it this way – have you heard that smiling in the mirror every day will make you feel happier? It’s like that, but positive affirmations are verbal versions of it.

Just as an example, if you have features that make you feel unattractive because they don’t line up with current beauty standards, every morning when you look at yourself in the mirror you can say something like “I love myself. I feel happy and beautiful. I love every feature on my body and wouldn’t change a thing. I’m lifting myself and others like me up.”

This affirmation is obviously not exact since they are deeply personal and unique, but here you are speaking as if you have reached the end goal of your mental state. You might feel the opposite of everything you’ve said, desiring with every fiber of your body to change your appearance. You might not even want to look in the mirror as you say it. Over time, though, you’ll start to see that your mentality will really become more and more like your affirmations. The goals and thoughts you believed were unreachable will become mundane, and you’ll find that thinking them is like breathing.

Why do self-love affirmations?

If what was said above doesn’t convince you enough, here are some other reasons why you should do affirmations.

Affirmations are Relatively Easy to do

Saying that they’re “easy” is a bit of misinformation. It might be extremely painful to unlearn years of negative thought cycles and societal standards, but in terms of the time commitment and employing them into a daily routine, affirmations are a super easy and flexible element. They can be repeated mentally at any time and any place, but they can also be spoken verbally at any time throughout the day at home.

A self-love affirmation of a woman hugging herself — Self-Love Affirmation: “I celebrate my success. I have successful relationships”

Like exercise or learning any new skill, it will become easier with time. What may have been a struggle to say in the beginning, such as “I am lovable,” will become a baseline thought process that everything else you do operates on.

Affirmations are Free to Create

Affirmations are an incredible free tool for improving mental health. All you need is the power of language, a bit of introspection, and 5-10 minutes every day to do them. Therapy and other mental health resources are extremely important, and this is not to say that affirmations are a valid replacement for therapy at all, but they can be a good buffer should you not have the financial resources to pursue therapy. They are a great way to practice self-love without even needing to buy a journal or any other resource. However, affirmations do pair well with journaling as it’s easier to remember things when they’re written down.

Affirmations of Self-Love Shift the Root of Your Mentality

Shifting your base thinking by getting to the absolute root of the problem is extremely difficult, especially when your actions are guided by a certain negative principle. For example, you might think, “I am unlovable.” As stated above, if you apply the “outside-in” approach, you might be able to overcome it without doing affirmations for self-love. However, even if that’s your approach, affirmations are a good mental safety net.

Thought patterns, in their most raw state, are heavily guided by emotion. Even if you rationally know that you’ve achieved a lot, for example, you might still frequently think, “I am not enough. I need to do more.” This irrational thought can become a guiding principle for all actions if not put in check by some serious introspection.

Sometimes, no matter how many distractions and achievements are made, thought patterns will stay the same. That’s why affirmations are so important – they can shift the guiding principles that may influence negative action. Obviously, they’re not perfect because all people make mistakes, but they can drastically improve your mental schemas and principles.

Prompt Growth in Other Areas

When you shift your thought cycles from negative spirals to positive, uplifting repeated thoughts, you’ll see that you’ll start to grow in other ways you didn’t think possible. For example, if you thought you were “ugly and unlovable,” you might have felt depressed, not wanted to look in a mirror, and felt like a burden to others.

When your mentality shifts, you’ll see that these overarching principles have their tendrils in areas of your life you didn’t even consider. By feeling beautiful and lovable, you might see that you’re making friends more easily, wearing the clothes that you want, and not being afraid to speak your mind.

They Can Be Paired With Other Techniques

Finally, if you’re already doing other mental health techniques, affirmations can be paired seamlessly with them. They can either be great mental health practices in their own right or the condiments you can put on your main practices like meditation, journaling, or therapy.

If you go to therapy, you can apply affirmations in your free time to solidify the progress you’ve made. That, or you can apply them when journaling as an opening exercise along with daily gratitude. The possibilities are endless!

When you’re first starting out, it might feel cheesy and ridiculous. That’s ok, but try not to let it stop you. Even if you don’t take it seriously at first, as long as you’re consistent it should have some positive effect going forward. It’s extremely uncomfortable and even painful to create self-love affirmations that really do the heavy lifting that is healing. You might feel stupid for doing these self-love affirmations or you might feel bad when doing them at first, but that’s just the necessary friction for personal growth.

Growth is uncomfortable. It’s the discomfort that can make people step back and decide not to continue with their journeys towards happiness and self-assurance. However, affirmations of self-love can make easing into that growth much more comfortable with their repetition, consistency, and messages. Keep at it, and try affirmations today if you haven’t!