You're listening to the That's Life podcast by Richard Butler where I talk about everything to do with life and how to make it better, 

Hey, welcome along to this podcast and last week in my podcast I talked about how you are probably living an abundant life, but you don't know and I said to you that one of the most essential things that you need to be able to do is to love yourself. I mean you're probably too hard on yourself. You probably see all of the flaws that you have, you probably say, well I'm not good enough and you probably give a lot of love to a lot of other people, but not to yourself, but I'm here to tell you that it's so much easier to make your way through this through this world that we're living in if you love yourself. 

And you know, the first things first you have to do a little bit of work on this. I mean loving yourself is not going to happen overnight because we've been indoctrinated with so many things and I know living in Ireland you know, going to a catholic school, we were told like why are you talking so much about yourself? Why do you think you're so great? I mean that's not christian, that's not the way it is now,

 Maybe things have changed, but I mean we were told that you have to be modest, you have to be humble etcetera, here's a couple of strategies that you can use to love yourself each day and the first one is give yourself a compliment. You know, sometimes you look good, I mean sometimes you look in the mirror and you go you know God damn, I look good and there's nothing wrong with doing that. There is nothing wrong with complimenting yourself and saying yeah I look good today or I did a great job or you know I worked really well, I really provided for my family today. I whatever it maybe give yourself a nice compliment right now. 

The second thing that you can do is make a list of your accomplishments because this is something that a lot of times we don't talk about and we just say oh well I do all these things. I mean if you're a stay at home dad or stay at home mom with your accomplishments. 

Well you you work every day, you look after the house, you look after the kids. I mean you do so much. So make a list of all of these things, be creative and give this exercise some thought you'll find that your life has being more impressive than you actually realized. And I always tell my clients this when they are like applying for jobs that they need to make a list of what they have achieved because sometimes we just go through life saying, well this is what I do but we don't realize how much we actually do now. If you want to love yourself even more. My third tip is eat in a healthier way. I mean take better care of yourself. 

Unfortunately we see people and they go to these fast food restaurants and there just gorging on food. I mean they're buying two big burgers whatever branded that maybe um there you know, drinking, but of course they drink diet um soft drinks because you know after eating like you know two big burgers, you should watch the calories in the soft drink, that's what's going to really put on the weight. But I mean are you abusing your body or are you actually being healthy and eating healthy? Are you exercising? I mean to show that you love yourself, why would you abuse yourself? Why would you not look to be healthier look to eat healthier and all you have to do is just make simple changes and as you see things changing in your life, you will do more of those good things to keep up that good feeling. 

My fourth Thought for today are my 4th tip is to be grateful. I mean appreciate what you have. We are living in crazy times at the moment. You know, we've just survived Covid now right now as I'm recording this, we have all these problems with Russia and the Ukraine and there are people losing everything. I mean people who may have had everything that they wanted and now they've lost all in a matter of weeks, so appreciate what you have, you never know and I hope it never happens, but you never know when life will change. I mean it changed for me so many times and I lost a lot of things, but I appreciate what you have because a lot of times we spend time looking at what other people have and we say I wish I had that car, I wish I had that house, I wish I had that apartment and that's not good. 

I mean you have to appreciate what you have and when you start to make a list of everything that you have like you did before. And if you look at that and say I really appreciate all these things, well then you're gonna see a change in your life, you're gonna love yourself more because you say wow, I have a great life. So point number five for starting to love yourself is really difficult. It's forgive your past self now. I found this quite difficult because I think in the past I maybe made decisions that weren't the best decisions. I maybe did things that weren't the best I maybe said things that I shouldn't have said, but we can't hold onto the past. I mean we need to learn from the past, take on board what happened in the past but not dwell on it. We need to see, okay, well how do I learn from this particular experience? What can I do to not repeat that particular experience because if you're always repeating the same experiences from your past, then there is an issue. 

So forgive yourself. I mean say look, I acknowledge that I did what I did. I said what I said and that's it. I'm now going to move on and try and do that and just let it go as the song says Number six is make one small improvement in your life every single day. I mean you may be doing really well now but you can always do a little bit better. So make a small change that will in some way enhance your life. Maybe it's when you get into the gym instead of doing 30 minutes on the aerobic machines, You do 35 And the next day you do 37 and the next day you do 40 and suddenly you'll be at one hour on the step or one hour on the elliptical. 

And it is just those small improvements. I mean every little helps. That was the slogan of a supermarket here in Ireland and the truth is that every small change that you make hubs make the bigger change. I mean have you ever you know, put on a lot of weight and you said how did I put on so much weight? Well, it's all those little small bars of chocolate that you wait that did that. So here's a couple of ideas. I mean pay your bills on time, Be more patient with your family, Be on time for work, do five pushups every morning. How about that? Number six is do one thing each day that makes you happy. If not today. 

Well then when are you going to do it? I mean there's no time like the present to begin enjoying your life. Start taking those guitar lessons. You know, maybe get a dog if that's what you want or volunteer at the local food bank, start loving your life and yourself and my last tip to help you love yourself more is avoid people that drag you down. We all have people that drag us down. And there's one relationship that is poisoning you. 

Maybe it's your partner. I hope not. Maybe it's somebody on work. Maybe it's a friend. Um whoever it may be, you need to distance yourself from them because they will always drag you down and when they see you improving your life and loving yourself even more. They are going to start to drag you down. I mean you are a wonderful person and I know it. I haven't met you but I know you are and you deserve to live the life that you love and you need to start by loving yourself. So can you do those little things that I mentioned in this podcast and see what I changed. It will make between now and next week. 

And if you enjoy this podcast and make sure that you subscribe, make sure that you share it with your friends and I will talk to you next week. Mhm. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure that you subscribe and check out my website, Richard Blanco dot coach. I'll see you next week.