How would you feel if a friend called you fat for having ice cream? It would ruin your pleasure. What if she called you stupid for making a mistake? You’d feel angry and hurt and think she should be kinder. You wouldn’t do that to her? Yet you’d do it to yourself. Be your own friend by acting like one! You need to accept that your best friend is the person in the mirror. The only person who can help you improve your life is you. While other people may encourage you and give you support, only you have the direct power to make the necessary changes.

People will come and go in your life. The only consistent, guaranteed person who will always be there for you is YOU! So it’s up to you to stop criticizing yourself and judging you in a harsh way. That means it’s time to treat yourself as the best friend you’ll ever have. You may not feel that way right now but it’s the right time to begin to show yourself some love. As you do, it gets easy to be kind about how you think of and treat YOU.

When I was a DoorMat I couldn’t imagine being my own best friend. All I found was faults when I looked in the mirror. I was my worst critic and was a good friend to everyone but me. My needs came last, as most of us do when we’re people pleasers. It’s so easy to forget about yourself when you’re focused on other people. But it’s critical to start if you want to be happy.

Seeking perfection makes you overly self-critical. That’s not loving! Yet you’d never be so unkind and unsupportive to another friend. Why are you different? Think about it. Would you say the things you think or say to yourself to a friend you care about? I doubt it! Yet we so easily hold ourselves to much higher, often unattainable standards. That’s the opposite of being a friend!

Be self-loving by cutting your best friend—YOU—slack. Sometimes you might not work as fast as hoped. It’s okay! Try your best. Shortcomings don’t make you bad, or a loser. At parties, my willpower goes on hiatus. I pig out—guilt free—and take control after. Once when I’d reassured a friend who beat herself up during occasional pig-outs that one indulgence wouldn’t ruin her, she punished herself with each bite, chanting, “I’m a bad girl.” I doubt she enjoyed anything. Take pleasure, not guilt trips, in splurging!

When you need encouragement, feel guilty about something, start to find fault with something you say or do, or only pay attention to your faults, think about what you’d say to a friend who felt that way. Give yourself a pep talk in the mirror. Reassure yourself about why you shouldn’t feel guilty. Look for your good qualities and praise yourself. The more love you give yourself, the more you can begin to recognize that your best friend can, and should, be YOU.

I’ve been my own best friend for many years now and could never find a better friend if I tried. The more I loved me, the stronger my bond with me grew. Now I make the effort all the time to treat myself with kindness and it feels great. When you treat yourself the way you’d treat your best friend, self-love grows and life on every level gets better.
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Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Challenge–a pledge to do something loving for yourself for the next 31 days–and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways for free at http://howdoiloveme.com. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts from 2012 HERE.

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