Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It: The positive self-help phenomenon

by Kamal Ravikant

This day, I vow to myself to love myself, to treat myself as someone I love truly and deeply—in my thoughts, my actions, the choices I make, the experiences I have, each moment I am conscious, I make the decision I LOVE MYSELF.

The way I did it, it was the simplest thing I could think of. And importantly, something I could do no matter how bad I was feeling. I started telling myself, I love myself. A thought I would repeat again and again. First, lying in bed for hours, repeating to myself, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself, I love myself

To be honest, in the beginning, I didn’t believe that I loved myself. How many of us do? But it didn’t matter what I believed. What mattered was doing it and I did it the simplest way I could, by focusing on one thought again and again and again and again until it was more on my mind than not.

Darkness is the absence of light. If you remember this, it will change your life. Changed mine. It is this concept that the practice is based on.

If you had a thought once, it has no power over you. Repeat it again and again, especially with emotional intensity—feeling it—and over time, you’re creating the grooves, the mental river. Then it controls you.

The goal here is to create a groove deeper than the ones laid down over the years—the ones that create disempowering feelings. They took time as well. Some we’ve had since childhood.

This I know: the mind, left to itself, repeats the same stories, the same loops. Mostly ones that don’t serve us. So what’s practical, what’s transformative, is to consciously choose a thought. Then practice it again and again. With emotion, with feeling, with acceptance.

Choose one that transforms you, makes your life zing. The one I found, I love myself, is the most powerful one I know. You might discover another. Regardless, please do it.

Fighting fear doesn’t work. It just drags us in closer. One has to focus on what is real. On the truth. When in darkness, don’t fight it. You can’t win. Just find the nearest switch, turn on the light. James Altucher, in one of his best blog posts, talks about how he stops negative thoughts in their tracks with a simple mind trick. “Not useful,” he tells himself. It’s a switch, a breaker of sorts, shifts the pattern of the fear.

Beautiful irony. Fall in love with yourself. Let your love express itself and the world will beat a path to your door to fall in love with you.

That’s the thing about loving yourself, you start to tolerate less what doesn’t serve you—especially from yourself. This alone changes your life.

Asking the right question is the most powerful tool I’ve found in choosing the path to magic. In that moment when I’m about to repeat an old pattern, make a familiar and comfortable mistake, I pause, breathe deep, let the light flow in, and ask myself: If I loved myself truly and deeply, what would I do?

If I loved myself truly and deeply, with all my heart, wanting only the very best for myself, wanting and deserving a magical and beautiful life, would I do this?

The key, at least for me, has been to let go. Let go of the ego, let go of attachments, let go of who I think I should be, who others think I should be. And as I do that, the real me emerges, far far better than the Kamal I projected to the world. There is a strength in this vulnerability that cannot be described, only experienced.

I once asked a monk how he found peace. “I say yes,” he’d said. “To all that happens, I say yes.”

And I would also share the next thing I’ve learned, which is, don’t let yourself coast when things are going great. It’s easy to wish for health when you’re sick. When you’re doing well, you need just as much vigilance.

If I loved myself, truly and deeply, what would I do? The answer comes easy: I’d fly. Fly as high as I possibly can. Then, I’d fly higher.

I think that instead of reading loads of self-help books, attending various seminars, listening to different preachers, we should just pick one thing. Something that feels true for us. Then practice it fiercely. Place our bet on it, then go all out. That’s where magic happens. Where life blows away our expectations.

The results of our commitments are far greater than the original impact.

Here’s a side effect of making and keeping commitments to yourself: your self-confidence skyrockets. You walk through life differently. That’s the best way I can describe it.

It’s easy to get caught in our heads, run thought loops on automatic. This feels so normal that we rarely stop to question it. Yet most of these loops don’t serve us. At worst, they destroy our self-worth, separate us from love.

This question is perfect for dealing with others. No matter how someone else may be, how I feel inside is my choice. Always. So I ask the question to shift away from reactive thoughts. If I loved myself truly and deeply, what would I do?

There you have it: forgive yourself, make your vow, and do the practice. All from the inside out.