I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I’ll live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
Sang Whitney Houston in her 1985 hit ‘The Greatest Love Of All’
Top tune.
Got a couple of good take homes there too 🙂
Firstly, it’s your life.
Live it how you want, on your own terms.
If your actions aren’t congruent (dictionary toilet paper for Christmas) with your core beliefs, you’ll struggle to be really happy in what you do and your life in general.
Living your life in the way someone else wants or expects of you is a sure fire route to unhappiness.
Secondly, learning to love yourself is a key mental breakthrough that makes the process of achieving your health and fitness goals a whole new game.
A high proportion of people, when they first come to us, really don’t like themselves very much (not everyone, before we’re misquoted).
Infact, when they get more comfortable with us, many will tell us that they actually hate themselves.
That they feel they aren’t really worthy of anything good happening to them.
That there must be something wrong with them because they haven’t succeeded in what they’ve set out to do before (such a losing, and keeping off, the weight).
Sheer willpower may have got them so far.
But willpower is a finite resource.
It runs out.
When people start to learn how to like, even love, themselves, the gam changes.
The relationship with food can change.
From being a source of comfort and unhappiness at the same time to a source of fuel and enjoyment.
Exercise can change from being something they have to subject themselves to, to something they reward themselves with.
Their relationships with other improve.
Life just gets easier.
Tis easier said than done, of course.
The ‘self help’ technique of repeating positive mantras (“I am a good person”) has very low success rate.
It’s often a bit deeper than that.
Involves a bit of soul searching.
Looking at what you like about yourself.
There’s plenty in there if you look.
We promise 🙂
Finding the things in your life that make it hard to like yourself.
Other people, work, things you do, etc.
And putting systems in place to help you change these things.
Easy no.
Worth it yes.
Learning to love yourself.
Is the greatest love of all.
Master that and other stuff falls into place.
Much love,
Jon ‘Didn’t we almost have it all?’ Hall and Matt ‘I want to dance with somebody (who love me)’ Nicholson
