7 Questions to Raise Your Self-Love
And 3 tips to turn self-sabotage into self-love.
And 3 tips to turn self-sabotage into self-love.
I’ve been studying personal growth for over a decade now. And whether you’re trying to get your ideal body, build a meaningful business, or experience more happiness and fulfillment…
I’ve discovered there are an infinite number of ways to achieve your goal.
But ultimately, getting what you want and being able to enjoy it are two different things.
Maybe you’ve heard the stories of unhappy millionaires.
Or the gym rat who had a life-changing transformation, but still suffers from body dysmorphia.
You can spend all your time trying to achieve your goals, but for many, the chase never ends, because what they’re looking for isn’t anything external at all.
What most people are looking for is actually very simple:
Self-love.
Self-love is the pot of gold at the end of the personal growth rainbow, except you can actually get there — to a place where you truly do love yourself and want the best of yourself, regardless of your circumstances or past.
And you can save yourself some time by starting from this place that many never reach.
The reason self-love is so desired is that you can only give it to yourself and most deny themselves it.
And the reason self-love is so important is because, without it, nothing is enough.
With self-love, everything is enough — including you.
But it’s never going to come from someone else. It can’t. Others may know what to say and say what you want to hear, and it may even move you… But in the end, it has to be you who loves you.
And that’s not always, or even usually, easy.
Self-Love Isn’t All Spa Days and Self-Care
There are levels to self-love and it’s a spectrum. So, to help you find out where you fit on that spectrum and raise your awareness of your current level of self-love, I put together these (kind of weird) questions.
These questions are designed to help you see what may be standing in the way of deeper self-love and connect with the happiness, fulfillment, and acceptance that is on the other side of that gap.
But a word of warning: self-love is not all self-care and spa days.
However, if you take these questions with you into your next self-care retreat — it can be. Ponder them in the tub. Take them with you into the woods.
But whatever you do, answer them and feel your answers.
These are somatic questions. Meaning, that they’re meant to help you feel something and bring emotions to the surface (and clarity along with them if you sit with that…)
These questions and more importantly, your answers, will bring you closer to self-love, help you gauge where you’re at, reveal the ways a lack of self-love is holding you back, and help you increase self-love in your life.
Even though you are the only one who can give yourself self-love, it’s easier said than done. Learning to love yourself may very well be the meaning of life. And whether it is, or isn’t, we could all have a better time here in this life if we learned to love ourselves more and hate ourselves less.
So, these questions are gifts you can give to yourself. And help stimulate that flow of self-love.
(And many of them can be repeated daily to bring you back to what’s important.)
Let’s get into them!
Question #1: Are my goals really my goals?
This is probably the most important question on this list, and instead of ending with it, we’re going to start with it.
For many people, meaning in life comes from their goals, and their purpose. They feel happy when they achieve it, and often they don’t feel happy until then.
And it’s so easy to build your entire life around your goals and goal seeking.
But are your goals your goals?
Or are they:
- The expectations of others that you try to live up to.
- What do you think you should be doing to fit in with society, culture, and your peer group.
- Ways you avoid the judgment of others.
- Ways you earn the approval, admiration, and respect of others.
They could even be goals that you thought as a kid would solve problems you were facing then, and you’ve simply been keeping up the chase since then.
The feeling of accomplishing significant goals is one of life’s most satisfying, but only if the goals you’re achieving are your goals. That is, what is best for you, in the light of self-awareness, and as decided by you in your most clear thinking state.
And deciding if your goals are really your goals is a form of self-love.
As is giving up the quest for a goal that was never your choosing.
As is committing yourself to a goal that is aligned with what’s best for you, and which inspires you, regardless of any of your fears or concerns around it.
Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how hard you work or how many hours you hustle, if you’re climbing the wrong mountain. But knowing when to get off the slope and choose what to dedicate yourself to can be very freeing.
Many people will keep pushing because they believe it’s meant to be hard. That all good things won’t be easy. But in reality, the core behind much of that procrastination and difficulty is that subconsciously you don’t believe this is for you.
And instead of grinding to achieve your goal, what you’re really doing is grinding yourself down as you deny yourself the acceptance of what really matters to you and what goals are worth achieving.
Question #2: Can I rely on myself?
This question is heavy because any answer other than an immediate YES is obviously concerning. Since at some point in life (if not all points) you will have no choice but to rely on yourself.
Of course, others will help you. Many others, if you’re lucky. And others can come together to bless your life and help you carry your burdens to the point that you forget you even have them. But inevitably, if you’re unable to rely on yourself, you will find out.
When you’re unable to rely on yourself, the universe has a way of testing you and helping you find that out.
Because ultimately, a time will come when it is just you. And if your needs aren’t getting met, then you are the only one to blame.
If you question if you can rely on yourself, it may help to go one level deeper and ask yourself if you are your ally or your own worst enemy.
The reason why we learn not to rely on ourselves is that over time, we’ve let ourselves down. We’ve committed to goals without following through or betraying our values. Either in a lack of wisdom of knowing what is actually best for us, or from knowing something we’re doing is not good for us, and continuing to do it anyway.
Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have.
Trust stems from self-trust. Love stems from self-love. Happiness comes from within.
Over time, your relationship with yourself may be damaged. Through a series of commitments and telling yourself, you’ll do one thing, then going on to do anything else… these experiences erode self-trust.
When a friendship breaks, it’s hard to heal the relationship, because that relationship is built on choice. When a relationship with a family member breaks, it is often more enduring, because we never chose our family and so there are fewer options (or greater consequences) for eroding these relationships.
And our relationship with ourselves is the most enduring because we will always have ourselves. Our bodies, handle all of our unconscious processes necessary for life. Our minds, interpret this experience we are having.
It’s necessary for the relationship we have with ourselves to be the most enduring because our journeys are meant to carry us to dark places — and our relationship with ourselves needs to be able to come back from those places.
Breaking this relationship can have the worst of consequences, but ultimately redeeming ourselves and restoring our alliance with ourselves is always possible and something we can choose at any moment for ourselves to start anew. Because like family, we will have to deal with ourselves for our entire lives.
Question #3: Are the trade-offs I’m making worth it?
In every decision we make there are trade-offs. Any time you choose one thing, you’re giving up another. In a decision to be in a relationship with one person, you’re giving up the opportunity to be with any others.
In the decision to choose one job or a career, you are rejecting all others.
And even making no decision is a decision, as time marches on and what we experience is what is…
Every decision has a trade-off. And every time you gain something, you’re losing another opportunity.
This is neither good nor bad.
So, the main thing to ask yourself is not… am I making trade-offs right now… but what trade-offs am I making, and are they worth it?
Trade-offs are scary because they are sacrifices. And not the martyrdom way, but in a much quieter, more difficult to notice way. It’s hard to calculate the opportunity cost of what we don’t know we’re missing out on. Because we’ll never truly know what could have been in the place of what is.
But you can know if it’s worth it for you.
And asking yourself this question is a great way to strengthen your self-love. It requires being self-aware enough to realize you get to choose. It requires being brave enough to find out if the trade-offs you’re making aren’t worth it to you…
And if they aren’t… self-love helps you re-negotiate them!
Questions #4: Am I holding myself back in any way?
When it comes to achieving goals, there are obviously going to be obstacles. Like the Stoic Philosopher Kind, Marcus Aurelius said, “The obstacle is the way.”
Maybe you need to learn something new. Maybe it’s putting in your 10,000 hours to reach mastery. Maybe the gap is: timing, relationships, maybe even there are external forces actively trying to keep you from achieving your goal.
And while that does happen…
What is far more common is not achieving your goal, because you’re holding yourself back from it.
Why would you do that?
After all, if you don’t get what you want: you’re the person it affects the most.
But this may not be conscious. Holding yourself back could be you trying to play small because that helped you avoid negative attention as a kid. Maybe you’re not even aware of what you’re capable of, so you don’t realize you’re holding yourself back. Maybe you’re more comfortable where you are and you’re afraid of change, even positive change.
This is one of the more dangerous ways a lack of self-love can cause us to waste time and limit our potential. And why self-love is the pot of gold at the end of the personal growth rainbow.
Because if you don’t love yourself, and want the best for yourself… truly… even if you have a high level of willpower and use it to push through to your goals, you can still stop yourself from getting what you want. Sometimes, this looks like doing all the right things, working hard, spending days, weeks, and months trying to achieve something, and then still sabotaging it at the last minute.
Most discover this type of self-sabotage is happening only after spending all the time trying to achieve their goals. Often, after decades of trying to achieve multiple goals. And realizing with some achieve them with little or no effort, and others seem to be impossible no matter what or how hard they try.
And if you spend long enough walking this road, you can discover that the difference is actually your level of self-love.
And if you really loved yourself, you wouldn’t hold yourself back from expressing your true self.
The last thing you want is for you to be the one holding yourself back from achieving your goals, and find out after all the blood, sweat, and tears. When in reality a slice of humble pie early on, and a heavy dose of self-love would save you a lot of time and help you finish what you start.
Question #5: Is there anything I am pretending not to know?
This is a… weird question, but go with it!
Similar to holding ourselves back, we can also get in our way by pretending not to know something that we definitely do.
Often we know something on one level, but we are on the brink of a positive transformation of who we are now into becoming who we choose to become once this knowledge becomes understanding.
And many of the realizations that will help us do that are simply on the brink of acceptance. Meaning we know what we need to know, we’ve already experienced the life moment that gave us the lesson, but now you need a higher level of self-awareness that will allow you to accept what you know and let the changes finally occur.
In this way, self-love stems from self-acceptance.
Even if you are given a million gifts, blessings, and opportunities a day — if you don’t accept them they will never be enough.
Many people expect before awakenings or periods of significant positive growth in their lives will begin with miraculous visions and a very clear sign that says “Good things are starting now!”
But that’s not how it works. And you’re probably processing one of these transformations now. Maybe multiples of them. And there are a lot of stages to integrating new learning. Some people think life itself is the process of a soul acquiring and integrating new learnings — so if you don’t get it all in one go, don’t beat yourself up about it.
Asking yourself this question can help stimulate some insight and give a chance for acceptance for those realizations which you’re already having… and not quite ready to accept. This can be one of the best ways to rapidly accelerate your personal growth.
While there are many reasons for not being ready to accept a revelation — most of them come down to the fact that accepting something will require you to change. And a big part of self-love is knowing that change can be growth if you choose what is good for you.
Question #6: Am I delaying my happiness?
This is perhaps the #1 most common mind-trap that keeps people unhappy and it’s simply believing this:
“After that happens, then I’ll be happy.”
Whether it’s that new purchase. That new experience. That paycheck. That big change/promotion/success… you name it.
For me, it always starts with a genuine want. I start thinking that something will improve my life and I decide I want that. To my knowledge, this stops here. But under the surface a new loop opens up… as if it’s a part of the contract for me achieving this thing:
“…and until then, I refuse to be happy.”
Sometimes we fall into this trap over small things. Sometimes we fall into this trap as children and never really escape it. Or we get out for brief moments at a time. Sometimes we get too comfortable with the hole. And believe that it’s all a part of the process.
So, we make seats in the dirt. We reject and deny ourselves happiness. If this goes on long enough, you can convince yourself that happiness is something we don’t deserve. That is until that special something happens…
But happiness doesn’t come from outside of us. It’s something that happens when we think we should be happy.
Self-love is giving yourself happiness now, not later.
Realizing that being happy now will help you achieve your goals. That happiness is a prerequisite to success, not an outcome of success.
So, don’t put your happiness off until then. Then will come, same as now is already rolling into the past. Worry less about that and more about what you’re doing to choose your state now — and improve your life experience as it’s happening now moment-to-moment-to-moment. Changing our states allow us to break the cycles and repeating patterns, and feel different, so we can make different decisions and get different outcomes.
Choosing your state is self-love. No one else can give you that. And if you’re not getting it, you’re the one starving yourself.
Question #7: Would I rather feels this, or would I rather be free?
Similar to denying yourself happiness, you can also deny yourself peace. Many view peace as something that occurs in the quiet moments of life, between the things that are happening. Something that we may find before we open our email before we get into our work. Or whatever else inevitably happens that takes us out of peace.
But like happiness, peace is a gift of self-love you give yourself.
And to bring it back, there’s a very powerful exercise you can do which stems from this question.
Hale Dwoskin, the author of The Sedona Method, has an entire personal growth system based on this single idea. And it’s not as popular as it used to be, but it’s still one of the most powerful things you can do to create more peace, happiness, and freedom in your life now.
The method is this: whenever you find yourself being triggered, distracted, and sacrificing your peace and happiness in any way, ask yourself…
“Would I rather have this… or would I rather be free?”
That’s it. That’s all it takes to force the realization… well, I’d rather be happy.
And let the rest go.
This is similar to the Stoic idea of being affected or offended by anything is a choice, and the offense does not occur until you choose to be affected by it. Whatever it is. Would I rather… be upset about traffic? Or would I rather be free?
Freedom is one of the highest forms of self-love.
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The 7 Self-Love Raising Questions:
So, to sum them all up, here are the 7 questions you can ask yourself to realize where your self-love gaps are, and how you can raise your level of self-love today:
#1: Are my goals really my goals?
#2: Can I rely on myself?
#3: Are the trade-offs I’m making worth it?
#4: Am I holding myself back in any way?
#5: Is there anything I am pretending not to know?
#6: Am I putting off my happiness?
#7: Would I rather feel this, or be free?
Remember: these questions can be confronting. But your answers are for you alone, and the purpose of this whole exercise is to increase self-awareness and open the space for more self-love in your life. So, you can shorten the gap that’s currently standing between you and your optimal state, with a few questions.
But like I said, self-love isn’t all spa days and mani-pedis.
So, if you didn’t like your answers or the way they made you feel, here are some quick tips!
What to Do if You Didn’t Like Any of Your Answers
Tip 1 — Humble people are happy people!
Oftentimes, pretending not to know, chasing the wrong goals, and holding yourself back can be part of living up to a story of who you should be and how you should live your life. And often that story isn’t written for your benefit, but the benefit of others. Usually, it’s not even written by you at all. Which, as you know — isn’t a path to self-love.
Instead of having anything to prove, or live up to, keep it tight-lipped and stay humble. Instead of focusing on how you come off or how you’ll be perceived, focus on how you feel. Feeling is a much deeper level of intelligence and relating to yourself, that bypasses many of the mental traps that we fall into.
Tip 2 — Avoid shoulds!
Similar to the last tip, it can be easy to spot mental fallacies that hold us back from deeper layers of self-love when we spot the word should in our thinking. I should do this, I should be this way, or whatever should be in the way.
Self-love is here and it’s now. There’s nothing you should have to do, think, or believe to allow it to flow. Shoulds get in the way of that flow. Simply accept, allow, and surrender to let them go and let self-love flow. And from that place, new life for you can begin each day.
Tip 3 — Be okay not having an answer!
This is kind of an ironic tip for a list of questions, but many of these questions aren’t designed to have answers. You can, if you do, but many of them are somatic questions — meaning asking them and answering them is meant to generate a feeling, not an answer. That feeling will reveal more about you to yourself, and your relationship to yourself, than any string of words, ever could. And simply accepting it, and feeling it, can allow you to process it and grow as a person.
So, if you don’t have an answer — that’s okay! Focus on how you feel. Emotions are unconscious answers, and by becoming aware of them you can turn them into feelings — which is something you can work with, create from and grow from. But like self-love, don’t reject your feelings. They need to be expressed first, so that you can choose how you feel after you’ve become aware, acknowledge, and accepted these feelings which are a part of yourself.
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Colton is an author, and entrepreneur and shares 4 of the most powerful methods on how to raise your self-awareness, come into contact with your shadows, and self-actualize in his free workshop: Unlocking Hidden Power — which you can check out here now: