If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that one of my goals for 2020 is to work on loving and accepting myself (even) more.  

It’s been an interesting project so far. I’ve been reading a couple of books on the topic (The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Browne and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin – I highly recommend both), been spending time contemplating what I learned and am paying more attention to my inner world and feelings. As I was doing all of that, I ran into a bit of a problem with this whole idea of self-love.

Self-love, essentially, is about accepting and loving ourselves for who we are, and to feel like we’re worthy, important and lovable just the way we are. It’s about letting go of the idea that we need to be a certain way or achieve certain things to be worthy and loveable – to others as much as to ourselves. 

It sounds great and like something we should all strive for. But something about it didn’t feel quite right to me. I couldn’t help but wonder; if I love myself just the way I am and accept all my flaws and weaknesses, then what’s going to stop me from becoming lazy and giving up on the person I would like to be? 

Don’t get me wrong it’s not like I hate who I am today. I do feel a lot of self-love most of the time. But the moments when I don’t love myself very much are often the biggest motivation for me to change and become a better person. 

It’s NOT loving myself because I’ve been lazy all day that motivates me to be more productive the next day. It’s BLAMING myself for not being a better friend that makes me reach out and make an effort. It’s NOT loving what I see in the mirror that motivates me to get back on track with healthy eating. It’s being ASHAMED of myself for being out of breath after a couple of flights of stairs that makes me get back into a better exercise routine. 

If I would just love myself no matter what I do or how I look and feel, don’t I risk becoming complacent and lazy? 

Doesn’t not always loving ourselves motivate us to change and become the people we want to be? 

As I thought about all this, I realised that self-love has a twin sister who is just as important (at least for me). Self-love on its own sounds good in theory, but it’s this twin sister who makes us try and be better – and through that, makes loving our self so much easier. 

That twin sister is called self-respect! 

Yes, I want to love myself, no matter what. But I also want to respect myself! 

I might be able to love myself even if I turn (back) into a lazy, overweight, unfit and uninspired person. But I wouldn’t be able to respect myself. Just like I wouldn’t be able to respect myself if I achieve my goals by cheating instead of through hard work or if I would treat other people poorly to make myself feel better. 

For me to be able to respect myself, I need to be, act look and feel a certain way. And I know that for me, self-respect is just as crucial to being happy as self-love is. It’s this desire to be able to respect myself that motivates me to work harder, be better and try again. 

I think self-love is mostly about accepting and loving the parts about ourselves that we can’t change. Self-respect is about changing the things we can change to become the best version of ourselves. 

For some people, self-love along might be enough to make them happy. But I know that I am someone who finds happiness in progress and improvement. So for me, self-respect is just as important to being happy than self-love is – maybe even more so.

And of course, there is also the fact that respecting myself makes loving myself so much easier. 

It’s really helped me to realise this and make this distinction between self-love and self-respect. I have a much better idea now of how I want to feel about myself and what I’m hoping to achieve with this 2020 self-love project. 

For me, the first goal is to be someone I can respect – every day and in every situation. Once I achieve that, I think self-love will come much easier.