What are your guys’ tips on how to do this? It just feels impossible, it’s a feeling I have ingrained and I just don’t see how it’s possible to like myself… just seems incomprehensible to me.

47 comments

  4. Try these methods:

    1. Imagine what a good friend would say to you and/or advise you to do, and listen to them

    2. Imagine a good friend of yours is in your situation instead of you. How would you treat them? What would you say? What would you advise?

    It’s a really good way of looking at yourself in a less biased way

  5. Are you a nice person?? You don’t kick kittens do you?? Start with having a positive impact on people and it will have a positive influence on you. I’m not film star material and I’m not a genius but I try to be polite and I’m good natured towards people and its mostly reflected back at me it makes for good interactions with people.
    I could pick out stuff I don’t like about myself all day long but why focus on that, im bald fucks given I don’t have to buy shampoo, I’m over weight but I’m healthy i can run a 10k no problem I can also eat a burger and drink a beer so who gives a flying one don’t focus on the bad stuff just simply don’t be a cunt.
    The Internet seems to have people fooled into thinking that everyone has to get up at 4am and go to the gym have a 8 pack and trade in cryptocurrency when being you and being good to yourself is enough your worth something and don’t let anyone tell you different.

  6. I hope it’s ok to chime in as a woman, I’ve read that your inner voice is the way you were spoken to as a child. If you were praised and encouraged, you’ll have a healthy self esteme. If you were belittled and critisized you’ll grow up self critical. If you were put on a pedastal and told you can do no wrong, you’ll grow up a narssist with an inflated ego. I was raised with critisism and I am very hard on myself.

    I find what helps is achieveing things. Everytime I set a goal and achieve it, I gain some self worth. I went back to College as an adult and it really helped my confidence. I was sure I’d fail and guess what, I didn’t. I am terrified of driving but I’m currently forcing myself to learn because I know how good it’ll feel to concur that fear. Set small goals for yourself. It can be as simple as making better food choices, then congratulate yourself for doing it. You also need to learn that your inner voice is a liar. It was formed because of shitty people who didn’t nurture you as you deserved, so don’t listen to it.

    You are not stupid, or ugly. You’re a worthy member of society and deserving of love and good things. When all else fails, fake it till you make it, force yourself to behave like a confident person and overtime you’ll feel it. You’ll also attract the right people into your life who will help build that confidence. Broken people attract Narcissists and Predators who will try to sink you further. Confident people attract confident people who don’t try to put others down but instead encourage them to rise up.

  8. Train yourself to stop taking value from surface things. Do something valuable with your life (don’t ask me what, it’s different for everyone) and stop measuring yourself by whatever standards have gotten you hating yourself. All the best

  9. You sound just like me. Did you grow up in a verbally abusive family? A narcissistic parent? Therapy might help but you should look into avoidant personality disorder. I’m so sorry you struggle with this.

  12. Something that helped me a lot with self hatred was to realize that I was comparing myself to other people. Comparison is the thief of joy. If you must compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Focus on the changes you want to make, and make them.

  14. Tough one. I always, even if I had shit times kind of always liked myself. To ”love” oneself sounds a bit narcisssistic, don´t think you have to go that far. But you have to look into yourself and like the fundamentals whatever all other mthrfckrs say.

  15. Mindfulness meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and especially psychedelic therapy have worked miracles for me.

  16. Be a person other people want to be around. Outside of a romantic context people generally don’t care about your looks, but rather about your character. It is much easier to like yourself when you are surrounded by people who like you.

  18. I’m trying to learn right along with you. For me: I can appreciate the text on the screen, but not the mind that thought it.

    I can appreciate the drawing, but not the hands that made it.

    I personally need to get better at liking the self without escaping its lesser parts. I also need to get better at accpting that the good parts are still part of the self that I dislike.

    It takes time, we need to treat it like a tree that will one day give us fruits and give it the time and nourishment it needs, not like a weed that will grow and fester without a single drop of care put into it.

  19. Yes but it doesn’t happen all at once. A lot of two steps forward, one step back kind of progress.

    Tip #1 would be to force it early on. It’s so different from what you’re used to that it’s going to feel phony but you need to “break the seal” on self-acceptance and self-love

  20. I can relate to that. I know it’s stupid but I can’t help but hating myself. And at this point it’s rooted like a tree needs its roots. I cannot remove it from my way of thinking and living.

  22. i stopped telling myself “I have to be like this at this certain age” and i cut out people who tell me “why arent you like this yet at your age”

  23. Workout almost every day . Find a goal and work towards it.have discipline and meaning. Enjoy the improvements you notice within yourself.

  24. Mindworks is a great book that unpacks inner beliefs and shows how those can be changed.

  25. That’s a really good question. And I myself have the same problem… One thing I realized is that this “hatered” probably comes from issues or circumstances in your childhood. I would recommend you look into this. You can google up a certain Dr. Mate Gabor on his speeches on trauma. Anyhow, it is now your responsibility to fix yourself. Good luck mate!

  26. I’ve never understood the idea of loving yourself and nobody has ever been able to explain it to me.

    What you can actually do is realise you’re stuck with yourself so there’s no point in hating. You should work on what you can change, accept what you can’t, and understand you’ll never do perfectly.

    I’ll give you an example with myself:

    1. I can work on my physical state – be strong, fast, high endurance, etc, by doing sports, so I stay active. It makes me feel so much better about myself.

    2. I’m bald, ain’t no saving that. It is what it is, I’ve accepted it and I’m rocking a beard. Is it ideal? No, but there’s nothing I can do. How fucking stupid must I be to feel bad about something out of my control?

    3. I’m very blunt, sometimes to the point of hurting the feelings of my close ones. I can never be the complete opposite as that’s not my nature, but I am trying to be a bit more considerate. It doesn’t work all the time, but that’s just who I am. I guess you could say people are lucky I’m even trying.

    This scheme ain’t perfect, when I look at the mirror I don’t feel “love”. I just give myself a node, be thankful for what I’ve been given, and go on with life.

  27. You are you. There’s nothing you can change about that so love yourself. You’ll never be anybody else. If there are things you don’t like about yourself that are in your control then work on them. Try to be optimistic about yourself and life because this self hatred is probably only in your head. In reality people are just thinking about themselves and probably not hating on you. So yeah, I say do you bro because what else can you do?

  28. Your ability to love yourself, is based on your ability to be loved by others.

    And your ability to be loved by others is based on how attractive you are (and conversely, how few repulsive traits and behaviors that you have).

    People who are confident and happy have received validation from family, friends, teachers, etc from birth because they are genetically superior specimens.

    If you don’t feel loved, it’s accurate.

    Improving your attractiveness will improve how other people treat you.

    For some, this may require plastic surgery and expensive dental work.

    For a few, no matter what they do, they will always be unattractive and treated like creeps. No amount of self-improvement or plastic surgery will help.

    Source: [3 tiers of men](https://youtu.be/VqIqil-B0U8)

  29. You have to choose to. View it in this light. With a partner, though you might be in love with them you won’t wake up every day overflowing with feelings of love for them. But you make a conscious choice to love them and show that love anyways. Maybe you say nice things or express that love through doing nice or helpful things for them. Even though you don’t necessarily feel love you choose to still show it because you do love them. Self love is the same way.

    When you wake up and don’t feel love for yourself, you have to make a conscious choice to still show yourself love. Such as: showering, making yourself a good meal, exercising even though you don’t want to, getting yourself something nice, being patient with yourself or forgiving yourself for a mistake, giving yourself time to participate in a hobby. It’s a long road and it starts with baby steps. But self love is a choice. It’s choosing to treat yourself with love and to take care of yourself. The feeling isn’t always there and rarely is it there at first. But it comes eventually.

  30. My advice? Start making fun of yourself in a lighthearted way. Look at all the things you find wrong about yourself, and think about how absurd they are. Then, just let the jokes fly.

  31. My advice? Start making fun of yourself in a lighthearted way. Look at all the things you find wrong about yourself, and think about how absurd they are. Then, just let the jokes fly.

  32. The only comments you answer positively to are the ones validating your pain. Those trying to help you are met with words meaningless to your happiness.

    Truth is you want to wallow in your hatred because it’s nice and easy. You don’t want to do the effort of loving yourself.

    Study stoicism and **really** give a shit about it because your whole problem stems from not accepting things you can’t control. You’re not special. Plenty of men even shorter than you have etched themselves into history by pure effort.

  33. I’m trying to do this now. Recent personal events have helped me become better able to reflect on my life, my emotions, my thoughts and better understand why I did what I did, or why I can’t do or have great difficulty doing what others seem to do naturally.

    You build up a lot of gunk over the years, it takes time and consistent effort to clear it all out. For me, it isn’t flipping a switch. I’ve described it as coming to terms with myself, which I believe is a necessary intermediate step.

  34. One thing that helped me is to forgive myself. I had a pile of stuff that I did wrong in my own opinion, and it was a source of hate for myself.

    So I decided to forgive myself for all the things I did wrong. I can’t change what happened, I can only change the future. So the only way forward is to forgive myself, have some compassion for myself and move on.

    To prevent building a new pile I now choose to see things that go wrong as a learning experience. I remind myself that I am human. I think of what I would say to a friend who did what I did.

    And I put it in perspective. Does it matter in 10 seconds? 10 hours? Ten days? Ten weeks, months, years? When you ask that question, things suddenly become very small.

  35. The way you speak to yourself has a HUGE impact on your self-worth. Saying “I’m short and ugly” is reinforcing a poor mindset. If you’re only saying negative things about yourself, you’ll believe them. Trying out positive or even neutral comments, even if you feel like you’re lying, will only help you. Find 5 things you appreciate about yourself and say it out loud, or write them down. Even the smallest things that seem lame and corny. “I’m pretty good at video games” or “I’m grateful for my friends” “I like the color of my hair”. Fake it till you make it, if you will. Improved my self-esteem and general mood greatly and now I feel a lot more comfortable in my skin, which extended to the rest of my day-to-day life.

  36. All humans suck why do you think you get to be special. Find peace in that then realize soon you’ll be dead n gone and there is nothing you can do, so stop worrying start living do what u want no regerts!

  38. 1. Be your own best friend for a whole year. Do things you think a friend like you would do for someone else but for yourself.

    2. Learn to.love.yourself like a relationship for one year. Take yourself out to events alone. Be unapologetically yourself. give ppl compliments for anything u like about them. Nice shoes, nice shirt, cool flip, nice hat, I like your eyes. Etc

    3. Do things you like and explore your interests and hobbies more.

  39. Everyone has a gift or talent. Nevermind the faults we have because we’re all imperfect and have things to work on and improve. What helped me is to focus and sharpen the gifts & talents I have and enjoy them, and don’t compare yourself to another because we all aren’t the exact same (it’s like a truck comparing itself to a luxury car….it may not have luxurious details but it sure as heck can go off road and make it through water) “Your entire life” as you said is actually part of your life, you have much more to live for and learn about yourself. Remember this you are an amazing human who has yet to discover their amazing abilities…..oh and yes you can learn to love/like yourself, just because we think something is a certain way does not mean it is actually true. Much success my friend because you’ll get there.

  40. your actions must reinforce your self-love. if you think getting up in the morning looking in the mirror and saying out loud, proudly that you are worthy of love and are a friendly and likeable person is a silly waste of time, it’s because you don’t see the point of building yourself up. building yourself up works but it requires more than thinking about it. you have to verbalize it either to yourself or explain it as a healthy boundary to others.

  41. > What are your guys’ tips on how to do this?

    If you had a dog, what are all the things you do to give your dog a happy and healthy life? You’d give him a comfy place to sleep, feed him good food, take him to the dog park a lot, and give him all the affection he or she craves. Those are things you’d do to keep your dog happy.

    Similarly, ask yourself what are the things you’d do to give *yourself* a happy and healthy life? Do those things.

  42. Tldr: I treated myself as I would treat a pet and it worked.

    It was a long way for me to stop hating myself and start loving myself. I can tell you how I did it but its probably not going to work with everyone.

    About me: extremly obese (which is way worse in germany than in a country that kinda accomodates to fat people like the US), skin problems, not really any friends as a kid, grew up poor, both parents gad severe trauma from migration and hard depression (mom tried to khs when I was like 11 or so), ongoing problems with my family (kicked out at 17, always felt left out, was kinda keeping myself away because of fear of being cut off otherwise etc).

    I have many pets, plants and I work with children. I also tend to talk with myself A LOT, mostly to solve problems and stuff. Every pet and every plant has certain conditions it needs to survive. Temperature, humidity, fertilizer, feeding time etc. I used to write a lot of caresheets for my plants and animals to keep everything on track and to sort out who needs my attention when. I kinda thought about it being a funny idea to write a caresheet for the kids I was working with because I tend to feel overwhelmed with them, too. As a joke, I instead started to write one for myself. When do I go to bed? What do I need to eat? How much should I eat? Hygiene? Barbershop visits? Dentist control?

    What started out as a little joke for myself ended up to make me realize, that I am the person that is abusing myself severly. If I was a pet and someone would keep me under these conditions, I would have screamed at the person keeping me and probably called animal protection services and shit. I started to force myself to eat more vegetables and leaner meat. Less meat in general anyway. I started to walk more places that I would usually take the train to. Went to doctors regularly, dentists as recommended 2 times a year.

    I am still fat, but its because I eat really big portions of healthy food. My skin is still unclear, but it got way better. I still have problems with my self worth, but only in like 3 out of 10 scenarios instead of 10 out of 10. I still am lonely sometimes, but now I can just call my friends. I am still not financially stable, but it got better as I keep working higher payed jobs.

    But the most important part: I can love myself as much as I love my pets, my plants and all my friends and I wholeheartedly believe that most people deserve this. I wish you all the best and I hope that you will feel better soon. If you ever need someone to talk to, Dm’s are open.

  44. Go. To. Therapy.

    There is absolutely no legitimate reason to hate yourself. It’s like keying your own car. It’s a complex and maladaptive thought that arises from our complex society rather than for any evolutionary reason.

    Find a therapist and you can work on loving yourself.

    It’s worth it.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

    Also you may have a chemical imbalance in which case you might need medication. That requires a doctor or psychiatrist. Discuss it with your therapist either in your first phone call or first session.

    If you have any reservations, questions, or worries – particularly regarding finances, confidentiality, and self-harm (when can a therapist call a cop?) – just post a comment or send me a PM. I am happy to help as someone who has benefited ENORMOUSLY from therapy that cost only a couple hundred dollars out of my pocket.

  46. Hating on oneself is tiring and at a point you will realize just how much less effort it takes to stop caring.

  47. Well I’ve hated myself most of my life, and what really helped was a combination of Medication and Cognitive behavioural therapy.

    I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression. Turns out my thinking was irrational a lot of times when it came to self worth, the meds can help your brain function better and the Therapy helps you identify the beliefs that you formed but make no sense.

    Maybe you don’t even need meds and therapy could solve it, but I’d recommend seeing a good Psychiatrist if possible.

    I would totally recommend taking care of your mental health, it was the best decision I’ve made in my life so far.

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