This is Day 8 of the 21-Day Journaling Challenge held in Nov 2011. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.
Hi everyone – Welcome to Day 8 of 21DJC! :)
Yesterday’s question was: “What is the Most Important Thing You’ve Learned in Life So Far?“. (Read the responses.)
There have been so many things I’ve learned to date, and each of them has been important in its own right. From lessons like follow your heart, trust your instinct, always address the root cause of issues and not the effects, open your heart to others and others will do the same, the outer state of your life reflect your inner beliefs than anything else, when there’s a will there’s a way, nothing is impossible in this world, your inner self has all the answers, you always have a choice, the limits we face in life are to do with us than anything else, growing is the best thing one can do as a person, life is what you make it out to be, the only limits we face in life are ourselves, and many more.
Hence, if you are to ask me one thing I’ve learned in life so far, I’d say it’s that I’ve learned nothing. That there are so many new things out there, so many incredible, talented people, so many wonderful experiences that I’ve yet to experience. That the more I learn and grow, the more I realize how much I’ve to learn. I’ve found this to be especially true since I started my travels.
The implication then, is that we should always be open to new things. Don’t close yourself off from new experiences. Don’t close yourself off from people. Don’t rule out new opportunities for growth. Most importantly, don’t be closed off in your beliefs. (On Days 26-27 of Be a Better Me in 30 Days Program, you identify your limiting thoughts and replace them with empowering ones.)
With that said, let’s now move to today’s question!
21DJC Day 8
Today’s question is this:
On a Scale of 1-10, How Much Do You Love Yourself?
Self-love is a topic that’s so important, yet rarely talked about in the realm of personal growth. Hence, today I’d like to ask you to reflect on this: How much do you love yourself on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest? And why?
Your Task Today:
- Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!
- Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.
- Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers. This is a group course, so let’s support each other in these 21 days.
((Images: Empty book for journaling, Self love))
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On a Scale of 1-10, How Much Do You Love Yourself?
Between a 6 and a 7. Interesting that I answered the greatest lesson I learned so far is to love myself and recognize the beauty within.
Yet…I’m still at a 6 or 7 since I find myself not addressing my body’s needs…healthwise or just taking the time to rest and relax to keep my body functioning. I truly need to work on this.
i would give myself 8, presently i am really working on myself to become a better person, i lack people’s skills and how to manage people and i am working on that and hoping to become a more friendly and better person before the year runs out.
I’m at a 5 out of 10 when it comes to loving myself. I’m very aware that I do not love myself as much as I should and this is a source of a lot of unhappiness in my life.
How does one learn to love themselves more? That’s something I’m still figuring out…
5.
I feel that there are a lot more things that I don’t know about myself and life seems like a journey to create and discover things about myself, and get to love. I can’t be confident whether such idea can be really measured with number, but I think at least half of the things I do/think/feel – I can love and hence the number 5. This just means there are a lot more for me to find out! :)
How much do you love yourself on a scale of 1-10? My answer is 6, I don’t know whether I really love myself, how it means to love myself. The scale is given for some reason that I know I’m over self-protected from the real world. I now spend more time for myself to do what I like and I’m quite lazy/ relaxed myself sometimes. I do not really love myself of my defects, but I do meditate and read books to enhance myself. I don’t take alcohol, cold drink, soft drink; I eat healthy foods and exercise.
How much do you love yourself on a scale of 1-10? My answer is 6, I don’t know whether I really love myself, how it means to love myself. I now spend more time for myself to do what I like and I’m quite lazy/ relaxed myself sometimes. I do not really love myself of my defects, I’m over self-protected from the real world but I do meditate and read books to enhance myself. I don’t take alcohol, cold drink, soft drink; I eat healthy foods and exercise.
I love myself way less than I should. Probably 5-6 out of 10, right now. It used to be way worse though, probably 2-3, and this was just recently
I was depressed for years and years, feeling trapped in life in so many ways. I would sleep the days away, never leave the house unless I absolutely had to and I felt ugly and gross. It wasn’t until I met my husband and fell in love with him that I realized how staying with my ex-husband as long as I did had really undermined my self-confidence and my self-love, if you will.
After close to a year of serious difficulties because of dealing with my divorce and moving out of the apartment I used to share with my ex (other side of the country), moving back in with my parents and siblings (and having past family problems re-surface), as well as being apart from my new love (being from different continents on different sides of the world has its challenges), I now weighed more than I cared to acknowledge and felt worse about my body than ever before.
I had never had any noticeable stretch marks on my body before, but now within less than a year there were more of them than I could begin to count and they were aggressively dark red, deep and pretty big and looked very gross in my eyes. Every time I got undressed and/or took a shower, I would look at myself (either directly or through the mirror) and I would feel so angry at myself. It was the purest self-hate I had ever experienced. So “genuine” and “true”.
It made me even more upset when I realized that not only had I done this physical damage to myself through handling extreme stress (which made my skin more sensitive) and letting myself gain weight at the same time (mainly by not eating properly but even more so by not exercising), but I also continued to pour a very raw form of hate onto my mental wounds. I was disgusted with myself. I felt like a total failure and I was crying a lot and feeling helplessly sorry for myself, not knowing how to make things better.
Hitting this peak of self-hate made me feel a more instant urge to find a way out than I had felt before. I’m still struggling with this, but I feel like something has changed within me lately. I’m able to be more forgiving towards myself and I believe that the shift I’m feeling is me having taken the first step away from self-hate hell and towards self-love heaven. It’s a long walk, but since I need to work out anyway, I guess that fits me pretty well…
The question reminds me to turn inside myself. I haven’t thought about it before, but if I have to rate myself, I would say now, it is about 8. I think it’s important to know how much we love ourselves, especially when bad things happen.
For me, when something wrong happen to me, I need to take time to clear off problem, then give love to myself. My heart still beats when annoying things happen, meaning I don’t control myself, my heart properly. Still, I can regconize toxic feelings/emotion that can harm my body and do something about it. Therefore an 8 is appropriate.
I am imagining in the future if I ask myself this question again, I can say without hesitation, without thinking, that I love myself all the time.
An 8. I am proud of my accomplishments, the relationships that I have, my desire to continually learn, and my commitment to my personal health and fitness. I am a happy, upbeat person, and very few things get me upset. However, as mentioned in a previous post, at 54 years old I still do not feel as if I have found my passion in life, and that frustration keeps me from being fully satisfied and from giving myself a 10 on the scale of how much I love myself.
Unfortunately I don’t love myself very much. I’d say maybe about a 3. It is something that I don’t like to think about much. I like to keep myself very busy so that I don’t have time to think about me and what things I can do to make my life better, I just want it to be better, for someone else to do the work. Some times are better than others, right now I am going back into a darker side of my life (I think it has to do with the changing of the seasons. I usually seem to feel a little more pessimistic around this time of the year. I know the things I don’t like about myself and I know a lot of the things that need to be done to “fix” those things, but seem to lack the self-discipline/motivation to work on them. I like to think that I am too lazy, but I think that is too easy of an answer and a cop out.
I thought I was a 7 but I have been realizing the ways I don’t honor my higher self lately. Downgraded to 5 but hopefully speedier growth.
9.99 I wish I weighed a little less.
I would say 7 because even thou I still think I have many flaws I think I’ve been putting a true effort in making myself a better person lately and that makes me feel proud of myself =)
but i suppose this is a question that we should ask ourselves daily because depending on what we are feeling the answer will change (and feelings are very fickle).
When I read a questions like this I realize that the answer is very dependent on my state at the moment. If I have just done something I am very proud of then my level of self love is very high. However if I have just made a huge mistake or offened someone accidentallhy then my self love might be very low.
I think that I can tie my level of self love to many external things. Mostly it is tied into whether or not I have been able to get a result I want in a certain area of life. I can attach my self worth to outside forces even if they are completely beyond my control. I have been able to let go of this feeling over the past few months.
At the moment I feel happy with myself though and give myself a 7.
As of right now, I would rate my currently level of self love at a 5 but I’d like to be at an 8.
I’ve always struggled with self-esteem but I have grown very good at faking confidence. However in the past few years, I have made some questionable decisions that have left me reluctant to trust my own judgment and makes me wonder what it is about me that attracts toxic people into my life. I try to be a good person; kind, generous, helpful, yet more often than not my efforts are taken for granted and abused rather than appreciated. My mother is always telling me I need to toughen up and stop being so trusting. My own mother told me I need to harden my heart a little and stop trying to please others.
I have been listening to her advice and I’m working on my self-esteem issues and making an effort to better myself physically, mentally and emotionally.
My goal for the New Year is to become better adept at judging the character of others and do a better job of protecting my heart and avoid getting my feelings hurt.
This was a tough question, and can be interpreted in a number of ways. My initial response was to read the question as ‘how worthy of love am I’, with my answer being 7. I recognise that I have failings, and that I do not always live up to my standards, but I believe that I have a good heart and I try to do the right thing most of the time.
But on reading comments, I came to see another side of the question – ‘how much do I hold myself in love’, which I would answer 5. I tend to be a harsh judge of my actions and can focus too much on who I want to be rather than loving the person who I am. I can lack appreciation for who am I and my potential.
I believe we should love ourselves and everyone else infinitely, whether we/they deserve it or not. Love is a gift that every person deserves as a basic right of humanity, to feel happiness rather than suffering. It has amazing potential to transform lives for the better.
Hi Dear All,
I would rate myself on 6, it shows that I accept and like myself but there is still some work to do here! Some of my characteristics or behaviours do not please me at all and it is difficult for me to accept them fully; for example, I still have issues with some parts of my body, I would like them to be bigger, guess which ones! :-). I would also like to be less perfectionist from time to time, I have a tendency to procrastinate; sometimes I am negative and aggressive. It still astonishes me how much anger I can contain, some ideas that passes through my head are just horrible. To sum up, I am discovering and working on accepting my own shadow, the part of me that I would like to hide from the world completely and never see it again.
On the other hand, I am also capable of contemplating my beauty and letting my own light shine. I truly believe that each and every one of us is here to grow, shine and show their absolute best. We are humans so we remain imperfect but still we have HUGE potential to discover. Especially our infinite capacity to love, share, show empathy and compassion, radiate joy and good energy. I am grateful for being my own self, for my love of life and other people, for my persistent and strong will to grow and become more mature on everyday basis, for my courage and passion, for my intelligence, sense of humour, my curiosity, my talents… Both my strengths and weaknesses build my identity and thanks to them altogether I am a complete, full, profound and true human being…
We are capable of being everything, of showing every human trait. Our characteristics are not simply good or bad but more or less appropriate to the context. Let us be everything, let us discover our new faces, the unknown parts of ourselves, let us accept us fully.. Let us become more than we ever thought we could be. This is my goal and even though I will never ever achieve it totally, it remains my guiding star through this short and adventurous journey of life! ;-)
Love,
P.
I love your energy! Truly inspiring to me this early morning at work! :)
What a difficult task! I don’t really like giving marks and the task of auto-evaluation is much more difficult. On one point, I could find that restrictive … Anyway it’s today’s challenge so I’ll manage to figure out what’s my face value or how do I appreciate myself. These last years I have learnt to know me better, I do appreciate spending time on my own , before I was seeing this more as a chore, I now also try to better myself, my defects. I’ve learnt to make fun of my imperfections and I see life as a great history to live and experiment. I’ve learnt to be more confident and to be more opened with my friends. I’ve also learnt to recognize my mistakes and it thus makes life much more easy this way. Nobody’s perfect, everyone is different and that’s our wealth. I do cherish the new vision I decided to put on life. I’m progressing every day on the love field, I really want to be a better me. I do leave behind my old-me to become someone more open-minded, less prone to critics. I want to go on progressing forever I’m no longer afraid and I welcome changes with envy and determination.
For all these reasons I would put myself 7 on a scale of 10: because I do like this number, because I achieved a lot, a lot remains to be achieved, and life goes on with great pleasure.
I would love to say 10 because self love i one of the most important things in life. We live to love and to be love, with the love as the most amazing thing thing of all. Yes, love is the number one, love for the others, love for the people and things, activities that surround you and love from these thing too.
But in order to love, you must know what love is, and that starts by loving your selfs. And that is important for everyone who surrounds us as well because we want them to love us, but how can they truly love us when they don’t even love themselves.
So it is very important loving yourselves, but how much do I?
Even thought I want it to be 10, even thought I need it to be 10, I think that’s 5, but now that I’m reflecting on this matter I promise to work on that direction. I’m sure that’s going to make my life more beautiful. :)
How much do I love myself? My answer is 5.
And I will explain why I have put my love to myself in the middle, but not even a bit above.
I think from my yough I gained this feeling that I am a right person, that I am fat, that I can’t talk normally, that I am irresponsible. These factors resulted in me being not confident in myself. Although I grew up and became a bit more confident, but I always feel that I am not good anough for anything.
For the past 6 months, I started realising that this is not the right attitude to myself and I started working on it, started trying to find out what kind of person I am.
And I think that I’ve made a progress and that’s why now I am in the middle of the scale.
On a Scale of 1-10, How Much Do You Love Yourself?
7. I do have my good points – I am proud of them but I see some more (still plenty) areas to improve on: temper – it’s easy to make me angry, and when I am, I lose focus on the issues at hand. This is one area that I need to work on. Another is the tendency to procrastinate – may be because I swallow more than what I can chew, but one good thing is I can see my imperfections …and with interactions like what we have ongoing – this will be a big help for me to control my emotions when needed. There’s a lot more to improve upon….
This is pretty tough to answer because it’s a very private matter. I want to yell, “10!”, but my actions don’t support that answer. I love myself, but like a lot of moms, I neglect myself, my wants and my needs for the sake of my husband and kids too often. So right now, I’d have to say 7.
This is very personal question. On a scale of 1-10 how much do I really love myself? I would give myself a 6, which is a vast improvement than what I would have given myself weeks ago. I struggle with this idea, loving one self. I was taught to love others before me. I was taught that loving one’s self was selfish and prideful, qualities I must rid myself of.
I’ve been working very hard at turning around the idea of selfish self love into accepting self love.
I think no one can be honnest with you like you can be honnest with yourself, so to tell the truth to yourself you need to ask this kind of question that help you grow for sure.
I think in scale of 1-10 I love myself 3 because I just wake up from my sleepwalking life and that goes slowly.
Love is a journey not a destination,like all other great achievements or success. Whenever you feel loved, you know that your love journey is progressing well. That meaning that because you are in a daily process of giving out love, you are receiving back equal if not more of what you are giving away. However since you can not give what you do not have, you have to be in love with yourself before you can have it manifested towards others.
So the more you love yourself,the more you will be able to give away that love and even receive more of it.
Therefore, you do not have to be beautiful/handsome, wealthy or even successful in anything in order to love yourself. All these qualities are a manifestation of what you sincerely are inside. So how much do i love myself?
I sincerely gauge the love of me by the love i receive. What this tells me is that i love myself enough to give and attract this much love from others and i can love myself even more in the journey of life itself. So i give myself 6 as i am still growing and the only time i am going to hit a 10 is to the end of time. This is because even when one dies the love they had of themselves and towards others remain visible in so many things into which they were involved during their lifetime. We see monuments erected in hornor of the loved dead,days made public holidays and even love visible in their siblings.When you love yourself enough,your self esteem grows,and so does your confidence.
You display a sense of love that people just get attracted to your presence because of the way you make them feel as you show them love. How could you ever be lonely when the love you have of yourself is beamed towards others who in return beams it back to you? Let us love ourselves enough and a long the way we will be able to attract more qualities and opportunities that make life worthy living.
This is really hard to quantify, because it seems to change so often. I have a tendency to be really hard on myself, so that right there is a strike against loving myself. :-) Even on days when I feel really good about myself, there’s this feeling of discontent, a feeling that I could be doing so much more. Maybe this isn’t entirely a bad thing, because it always pushes me to achieve, but on the other hand, beating up on myself isn’t very inspiring! I can see this is something I need to work on.
For now, I’ll say 6. Some days it’s better, some days it’s worse.
I would say a 5 on this one. I love myself half the time. The other half I spend dwelling on the kind of person I want to be and the kind of person I am. It’s a work in progress. I have made leaps and bounds from where I was at even a year and a half ago. I probably would have said a 1 then.
I do believe if you don’t find love for yourself it is hard to love other people fully. Actually, I have started doing some things for myself to better myself as a person. I have just started a few of these things, such as meditation. I am working on my inner self. I am a good person but at times can be cruel. I admire some of my traits but see others as character flaws.
This is day 8 of the journal challenge. My answer today is a 5. I hope by the time this challenge reaches day 21, I can look back on this answer and say 8. I am working toward a 10 and staying positive I can improve my inner self so that I can honestly say I love myself inside and out 100%. I am positive that in the near future I can reflect back and say on a scale from 1 to 10, I rate a 10 on how much I love myself. My outer self, I am content with. A few things I would like to improve, such as seeing a dentist. For the most part though, my outer self, I am happy with. My inner self is what I am working on. Trying to stay positive throughout the days is my main goal. Hopefully with everything I am working on, it will come natural after time and I won’t have to work on it as much as just maintain inner beauty and peace.
I would rate loving myself with “8” ‘coz I had been neglectful with my needs. I would deduct 2 from 10 = 8 ‘coz 1) I’d been neglectful with my physical needs such as with poor eating habits. Therefore, my physical & mental stamina (fatigue results to poor time management and lack of focus/concentration and ends up not gettings things done)…and 2) not taking good care my body (which is the temple of our soul), means I’m not taking good care of the graces, life, and spirit, God, Our Creator, had given me. Nevertheless, it’s not too late. Personal Excellence Celes the team, and the participants are working and helping each other. Thank you Celes and to all. God bless us all.
Thank you for your inspiration to me! I will begin working out today after work! It’s something that I’ve been meaning to do the past few days. :)
In theory, I’m accepting myself as unique, loved unconditionally by my Maker and therefore should rate my self love 10/10…
BUT
If I look at my actions, it is not the case:
I constantly crave acknowledgement.
Feeling embarrassed when I am acknowledged.
Being full of jokes – a clever way of hiding insecurity.
Always ready to help others, even if it is at my own expence.
Based on my actions? I rate my self love 5/10.
(An ambiguous question – I have understood it in a specific way.)
Ask “Who am I?”
Do you favour your lower or higher nature? We have twin natures – a lower nature where we complain, hate, react blindly and count our possessions, and a higher nature where we find meaning, transcend circumstances and see beauty. Possessions don’t determine self-worth or self-love, meaningfulness does.
Can I connect with myself?
I imagine that you would get a feeling similar to hearing music if you are really at peace with yourself, and nothing otherwise.
How much do I rate myself?
5 out of 10.
Though I am quite egoistic, I can’t connect to myself.
Though I don’t dislike myself at all, I don’t care what happens either.
I can completely relate with your answer. I feel in a way the same. I don’t dislike my outer self. I am working on my inner self. But at the same time, I have had circumstances, such as being in a severe car wreck, to where if I made it through, okay. If I didn’t, I wasn’t bothered by that either. I gave myself a 5 on this question as well.
How much do I love myself? Such an interesting question. I am wondering when we loose the ‘permission’ to look in the mirror and feel good. I think of my 10 year old daughter, as she inspects herself with a big smile. What day does that end?
The internal is much more important, of course. Always a work in process. Teetering between ‘Try Harder” and “Enough is Enough.” I have my list of things I would like to accomplish, including personality traits I’d like to address. All I can hope for is to live in the power of NOW. Acknowledge my own truths and address accordingly. I notice, when I do this, I love me more. (I am happy to say… right now I’m a 9 – leaving a little room for improvement :)
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