 If self-love a bunch of bullshit, you know, you see these trends going around the internet now and around media about love yourself, accept yourself the way you are, but I think people are misunderstanding what self-love really is. If your friend was a drug addict, would you say, I'm just gonna accept them unconditionally, heroin addict and all? No, you wouldn't. And for yourself, when you maybe are not holding yourself accountable to the standard you should be. Is that self-love? I don't think so. Now in this video, I want to share what I think are two or three very big misconceptions about self-love and what I think true self-love really looks like. Hey guys, Alex Hine, author of the book, Master of the Day. Now the first link in the description is something that can help you find a way to reinvent your life and have more self-esteem. It's for a free journaling worksheet right down there below and it'll help you plan out exactly how to unpack that stuff within you that may be holding yourself back. So you can check it out, the first link in the description there. So how do you really believe in or quote love yourself? Because I see a lot of people that mistake self-love with actually self-loathing. People say things like, what if what I just love is sitting on the couch and smoking weed and watching a movie? What if I just love going out and getting hammered with my friends and going and sleeping around? What if I just love slacking at my job and just kind of like playing games on my phone? These things aren't love, right? These are self-loathing actually because the thing is we're getting ourselves an easy life now for a more difficult life later. True self-love is self-accountability in the same way as dating somebody or having a friend that's destroying themselves but they say it makes them feel good. That's not self-love. It's true self-hatred disguised as I'm just doing whatever gives me pleasure now. And I see a lot of people mistaking, oh this makes me feel good about myself and improves my life for things that are destructive and are frankly just easy in the moment. So true self-love, proper unconditional love for another person is not accepting them the way they are and leaving it at that. It's not accepting myself the way I am now. It is accepting and holding one to a higher standard of doing what is right to improve oneself and not accepting poor behavior, not accepting addiction behavior, not accepting behavior that is destructive in the long run and mistaking that as I'm doing what makes me feel good. So how do you build self-love or self-esteem? In my opinion self-love and self-esteem are closely tied. You build it through actually holding yourself accountable and doing the things you say you will to improve your life. So true self-love means you keep your promises to yourself. If I say I'm going to eat well and go to the gym, if you truly love yourself you will do that. When I say I'm going to go an hour a night to work on my business, my passion so that hopefully one day I can quit my job, true self-love does that. If you say I'm going to work on improving myself and improving my social skills because I want to have a long-term romantic relationship. True self-love works on that skill so that you can have that relationship. So true self-love means I say this is what I'm going to do for myself and then actually doing it because you can't really end up loving yourself when you know you don't treat yourself well and one of the ways we don't treat ourselves well is by not doing what we said we would to be well and to build a better life and to become a better person. So self-love is always built through commitment. The commitment and the discipline to stand behind what you said you would do a long time ago and even though now you don't feel like it, still doing it. You can say ten times a day, let's say you're a woman and you're into men, ten times a day, I'm beautiful, I'm perfect the way I am. The first time a guy rejects you and you hint, you feel that it's about your looks, are you really going to believe that self-love affirmation? No, because the evidence outside of you is telling you that oh, I guess I'm really not, this guy just rejected me because I'm not attractive. So what are you going to believe? This affirmation you say to yourself or the evidence from the world that's telling you no. You know the best athletes in the world, Kobe whoever in whatever field, they don't become the best and have that cockiness because they've been doing affirmations. They've become the best and have that because they've demonstrated self-accountability by showing up every day to do the 300, 500,000 shots, to practice the golf swings, to do the judo throws, to study the mathematical equations, to meditate two hours a day. They have that because they've proven to themselves with their character that they are someone who can do that work. And so the self-belief comes after the fact. The self-belief cannot come before the fact because then it's just delusion. So that's why I think self-love is, yes, of course, acceptance, but also understanding I can do better and I need to do better. And I need to hold myself accountable for what I said I was going to do a long time ago to have a certain level of performance in love, in friendship, in finances, in health. And so rather than trying to convince yourself, I just love myself. I just look in the mirror and I just draw hearts. Rather than trying to convince yourself through some voodoo, instead, demonstrate it to yourself through some action. And then self-love will naturally be the thing that blooms from that over time. So I hope this helps in a little bit of a counter-intuitive way. I think self-love is, of course, self-acceptance always. That's the base. But then self-improvement is the branches, the foundation, and the branches, the root and the branches. That is my two cents on what self-love really is. It doesn't mean we let ourselves off the hook because it's easy and it feels good. Doing what feels good is often not self-love. Deep, probably going to trigger a bunch of people. That's usually my goal. Check out the first link below just for a free journaling worksheet that maybe can help you figure out how to reinvent your life and parts of yourself that maybe have been stuck or not exactly where you want them to be. And you'll also get an email every couple days on how to use that to totally reinvent your life. Check that out and then check out my last related videos right over here.