Finding true love is something that most of us dream about. The act of pouring your heart and soul into another human being, and that being reciprocated, almost seems like the pinnacle of life. But, that mentality leaves very little room for loving yourself, which is something that should be prioritised.

Why? Because finding happiness by yourself allows you to give and receive love without any pressure or fear. The reason why a lot of people doubt that real love exists is because they rely on it to fill a hole in their life.

Once you can look in the mirror and love yourself unconditionally, life will look a lot brighter. So, with that being said, here are some tips for learning to love yourself…

1) Don’t live with regrets

Regret is a sure-fire way to destroy your mental state. Those thoughts will continuously crop up and evoke negative emotions. Now, wishing you made different choices is natural, but repenting every single day will ruin your happiness. It’s important to live in the moment, accept that things happened a certain way for a reason, and keep moving forward.

2) Appreciate what you have

Nowadays, people focus far too much on the things that they don’t have. Scrolling through social media makes you yearn for a fantasy relationship, more money and the flash cars. Flip your mindset and celebrate the things that you’ve been blessed with right now.

3) Value yourself

No-one wants to be lonely and craving true love can often make you desperate to find that special someone to share life with. Learning to love yourself can involve other people but rushing into things will generally make you settle for less than you’re worth. Don’t force anything, because the right people will arrive when the time is right.

4) Practice true love

If you want to receive true love while actually loving yourself first, then you need to practice what you preach. Only you will know what type of love you want to receive from others, and in order to attract people that tick all of the boxes you need to be a reflection of that love yourself.

5) Deal with prior pain

Everyone has scars; experiences that have hurt you, situations that affect you mentally and past relationships that have caused pain surround us all. Before you can start to love yourself unconditionally, you need to move past that pain and put yourself in a healthy mental state.