Hey, this is Mat Boggs, and today I want to talk to you about how to love yourself more.
The reason that this matters and it’s so important is that our ability to be in a healthy
relationship and to love someone else is dictated by our degree of love that we have for ourselves.
And yet, most people don’t look there first. They don’t really try to develop their own
self-love or self-growth and if you’ve been on this path for a while, you are the type
of person who’s developing yourself, loving yourself more. If you’re just starting out
and learning about yourself and developing yourself, then you’re discovering that that
is important. So today I’m going to give you three practices to focus on that will
increase your self-love, and my challenge to you is, whether you’re on the advanced
scale of this or just starting out, that you turn up the volume on these three practices
to expand the love that you have for yourself and watch your levels of joy and fulfillment
and success go to a whole new level. So practice number one is to be kind in your
mind. In order words, to stop criticizing yourself. You know, often we are harder on
ourselves than we would ever let anyone else be to us. We will talk to ourselves in the
privacy of our own mind in ways that we would never let anyone. We would break up with someone
or end a friendship with someone if they talked to us the way that we allow ourselves to talk
to us in moments when we’re being critical. My wife, after she has given birth to our
daughter, it was a couple months after our daughter was born, and I’m brushing my teeth
in the bathroom mirror and I look over at Irene and Irene is looking at herself in the
mirror brushing her teeth and tears are just streaming down her cheeks. And her body wasn’t
bouncing back after the pregnancy as quickly as some of her friend’s bodies has bounced
back. And so I turned to her and I said, “Babe, what are you thinking right now?” And, with
tears streaming down her cheeks, she says, “I’m not being very nice to myself.”
And so I went over there and I hugged her and I whispered in her ear. I said, “You
be nice to my wife. I love my wife. My wife is beautiful. She’s gorgeous just the way
she is and I want you to be nice to her.” And I was telling – I won’t even let my
wife be mean to my wife. So my challenge to you is to turn up the volume on how you can
be kind in your own mind and stop criticizing yourself.
Step number two is to forgive yourself quickly. In order to really love ourselves and love
anyone else, having a healthy practice of ongoing forgiveness is essential, and especially
for ourselves. There was a moment when I got booked to speak in another country and I wasn’t
making a lot of money at this time in my coaching and speaking career and so the cheapest flight
I could get was a redeye. And I was planning on leaving on Wednesday and so it was a Tuesday
and I wake up and I’m going to pack that day and I get an email from the people who
were picking me up saying, “We’re looking forward to seeing you today,” and I started
to get nervous. I thought, “What?” And I checked my flight itinerary. I miscalculated
when my speaking engagement was and because it was a redeye, I didn’t get the flight
times correct and I booked a flight for the day that was going to get me after my actual
speaking engagement. So, instantly, panic flooded my body, I get
online and I start searching for a flight that will get me there that day. The only
flight they had was $1,500. And so I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” So I spent five minutes
panicking: “How am I going to afford this flight? Maybe I should just cancel the seminar.”
There were going to be, you know, 50 to 100 people there expecting me to speak in this
other country. I calmed myself, I booked the flight, I threw my stuff in a suitcase because
the flight was leaving in three hours. I had to get myself to the airport. And on the way
to the airport, I can hear myself beating myself up in my mind: “How could you be
so dumb? You didn’t even look at the itinerary correctly.” And I’m starting to beat myself
up in my mind and I knew that for me to show up and be my best and really serve the people
who has come out to see me and really pour into them, pour into them love and possibility,
that I would need to forgive myself and do it quickly.
So I took a deep breath, I learned from the mistake, and said, “Okay, I’m going to
double check these itineraries every time that I book a flight,” and I released the
energy and I forgave myself. And I showed up in a completely new state to this seminar,
delivered this talk. The seminar was a huge success. It ended up generating $17,000 in
clients, which was a huge deal for myself and my business at that moment. But it wouldn’t
have been possible if I had shown up in a negative, self-critical state. Only my forgiving
myself and changing my state allowed that kind of result. So my encouragement for you
is to consider what could you forgive yourself for that you could release so that you can
move forward in your life in the right state to create your amazing results?
And practice number three in loving ourselves more is to listen to yourself. And here’s
what I mean by that. There was this great study done where they interviewed thousands
of people and they asked these people, “When is it that you feel most loved in your life?”
And after all that research came back, the number one answer that people gave when they
felt most loved was when they felt listened to, when they really feel heard. And so we’re
often quick to listen to someone else and really be present and hear them, and my encouragement
to you is to listen to yourself and be present for yourself. And ask yourself this question:
“What would loving myself right now look like?” And then listen. What comes to you?
what answers come to you? Really listen to your heart. Listen to yourself. “What would
loving myself this weekend look like? What would loving myself right now look like?”
And maybe you’ll hear, “I really need a weekend at home. I really need to lay low
this weekend and just relax.” And the part of your mind will think, “Well, you’re
not going to be sociable then. You’ve got friends going out. You’re going to miss
out.” You know, FOMO, fear of missing out. That whole things starts to rattle. Maybe
you won’t meet your man then. But you say, “No. This is really going to serve me. This
is how I can most love myself in this moment is to be kind to myself and give myself this
weekend down.” So I encourage you to ask yourself that question: “What would loving
myself look like right now?” And listen to yourself. It’ll be amazing. Often you’ll
hear it will be, be kinder to yourself, not criticize or to forgive yourself for something
or to give yourself the time or the breathing room, something that your soul really needs
in that moment. And when you love on yourself in those ways, you release more life energy,
you create more fulfillment and you put yourself on a path of attracting more love into your
life. So I challenge you this week to adopt those
three practices. Be kind in your mind, forgive yourself fast, and listen to yourself and
serve yourself in the ways that you need love most and you’ll see extraordinary love come
into your life this week. So if this video serves you and you like it,
I encourage you to share it with someone who matters to you and increase the love in their
life. And if you’re not subscribed to this channel, make sure that you get subscribed
so you will be the first to get the latest and greatest videos that come out each and
every week. And, to serve you, I’ve created a resource for you and I posted a link to
that resource right in this video and in the description to a resource that will help expand
your heart and help you attract the love in your life. So go ahead and click that link.
You can get that resource. Again, thanks so much for watching. I’ll see you soon.