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Introduction

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As humans one thing that is common is that we all have feeling doubts. The feeling is usually so strong that it overwhelms us and affect how we perform in our tasks.

This feeling starts from a very young age and sticks with us as we grow. You begin to realize that you question your belief and attitude, you begin to feel unsure of yourself, start thinking twice on decisions made.

Loving oneself is a state of mind where a person begins to appreciate themselves in line with decisions and actions that supports their spiritual, psychological, and physical growth.

Through self love, one can stand against doubts that usually arises occasionally.

In the following line below I shall discuss about how I love myself to the moon and back using the given points.

What are the doubts you have?

I have some doubts about myself. The ones that are persistent and clouds my head are life after school, getting a job (good), and getting married soonest.

I graduated from the University of Calabar, last year with a degree in social work. This line of discipline is not that popular like engineering, medicine, banking and finance, etc. So right from my final year, I have been thinking seriously how I'm going to get a job to help take care of myself and my family.

Ever since I graduated, I haven't seen any job yet, worst still most of my course mates are like me, no jobs yet. I have gone to the places I have been told to meet some people, but unfortunately no jobs. This has really had a toll on me as I think about it every time.

Something came up sometime this year, I decided to learn how to do pastries so that I can use it and make something for myself. I have been learning it for the past 2 months and it's going well.

Learning how to bake

But the issue I have is having the capability to start making beautiful pastries and sell to people. After my first trial, I feel like the world is on my shoulders, because there's a lot of things that are needed. After coming to this realization, I have been having serious doubts as to how the outcome would be.

What can you do to overcome these doubts?

I realized later on that some of these doubts arose from a point of anxiety and life challenges.

In the case where I saw myself having doubts about the future even while I was in my final year in school, I was becoming anxious. I understood this as time went on when I graduated and started looking for jobs and alternatives.

As for looking for a job, I think what happened was that I started to lack belief in myself as I felt other people were better than me, more so, due to the fact that there's a limited number of jobs in my area of specialization and I might not be adequate enough to get one.

What I did was to stop having such thoughts and start believing in myself that, if I go look for any job, I would prepare as much as I can and go with the mind that I am the best of them all.

For my new venture, I spoke with a close friend who happens to also be my mentor. He has given me some useful advice on how to go about the challenge. So at this point I have a calm mind and doing as exactly as he has said, from there anything that comes up I will take the next step.

What makes you love yourself?

First of all, I'm a Christian, and as a Christian it is pertinent that I love myself and at the same time practice self love. It is also stated in the scriptures that God loves us, and we should love others. The only way we can show case God's love and our love towards others is by first loving ourselves.

In the church

As an individual I have learned to have a high regard for myself, my well-being, and overall happiness. When I came to this realization, I stopped putting others ahead of me, but putting myself first. It means placing my own needs first as against others and not sacrificing my happiness, mental health, and overall well-being to please others.

In other respects, I trust myself more (both in my decision making and in taking on challenges), I remain true and nice to myself, set strict boundaries with others.

I also practice self love by protecting my body. This is done by eating healthy, not smoking, having a lot of sleep, and not overthinking things.

I just try to accept the way I am at every moment in time for everything that I am and have accomplished so far.

What must you do to prioritize your happiness and well-being

To prioritize ones happiness and well-being, there are certain things that I must do.

Some of them includes:

• Being mindful of certain things. To practice self love, you have to be aware of things that resonates with you. Things like your thoughts, feelings, and wants.

• Acting based on your needs instead of wants. Doing things based on your needs helps you focus on doing the needful to get the right results. Also it helps you develop the habit of staying focused on your needs which in the process make you turn away from automatic behavior patterns that can easily get you into trouble, get stuck to the past, and reduce your self-love.

• Taking good care of yourself. Taking care of yourself increases the love for yourself naturally. You can achieve this by eating good food, making your environment clean, socializing with caution, having proper sleep, and regular exercise.

• Developing healthy habits. Bad habits can put you in ruin. It can make you hate your self so much that you begin to question your existence. Developing good and healthy habits will help you in the long run. You can start by knowing what you eat, how to manage money, how you spend time, starting to exercise, etc.

• Understanding yourself. To practice self love, you need to have a good understanding of yourself. You need to know what you want to achieve in your life, what to do to achieve them, and the connections to people. You should also try to be kind, patient, gentle, and compassionate.

Conclusion

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Self love is something that is badly needed in our lifetime. There are lots of people who doubt themselves constantly and it has affected them negatively.

I use to have doubts, a lot of it, because I was doing too much in terms of thinking, rather than acting. But ever since I realized myself, I made a conscious effort to be better everyday and try to improve. This singular act has helped me a lot and is still helping me.

I hereby invite @ijelady, @focudnow, @pearlofwisdom, @chichieze to take part in this wonderful contest.