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How to Stop Hating Yourself: 20 Steps to Loving All of Yourself

The world is full of enough hate, the last thing you need is to hate yourself. If you’re tired of disliking yourself, learn how to stop hating yourself.

how to stop hating yourself

There are times where we’ll think less of ourselves. It’s going to happen. So, we don’t want you to believe that you shouldn’t feel sadness or guilt because it occurs in some situations. But the problem starts when we negatively think of ourselves. Learning how to stop hating yourself is the best gift to give yourself.

As cliche as it sounds, you must love yourself.

All your friendships and relationships start from yourself, so if you don’t know how to love yourself, you can’t maintain thriving and healthy relationships however hard you try. It’s true that we are our worst critics, but you have to stop seeing yourself as the enemy.

Loving yourself doesn’t mean thinking you’re perfect, but it’s about knowing how to accept yourself, despite all your flaws and imperfections. Going down that road of self-hatred only make things worse, not only for you but for the people around you as well.

Self-hatred is a part of being human. Of course, there are things about ourselves that we don’t like. We’re pretty sure Lady Gaga and Shawn Mendes don’t like themselves some days too.

[Read: Self Loathing – What it is, 25 signs & how to stop hurting yourself]

Why hating yourself is self-destructive

When you go down the path of hating yourself, this doesn’t just affect the entirety of your self-esteem but also all your friendships and relationships.

So when you hate yourself, you will go down the self-destructive path, one way or another. You’ll never see yourself as adequate to experience or receive love.

Since you hate yourself, every action and direction you take will be based on that negative belief about yourself. You don’t think you’re good enough, successful enough, lovable enough, smart enough – and the list goes on.

It’s self-destructive because your life choices will reflect this. And even if someone showers you with love, you won’t accept it. You may even subconsciously sabotage every positive thing around you.

Because of how you view yourself, it can cause you to tolerate and even encourage toxic relationships and friendships, or sabotage your own happiness because you think you don’t deserve it. So you see, a lot of factors come into play if you don’t love yourself enough.

Learning how to stop hating yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself. Trust us; you’ll thank us in the long run when your entire life turns around just because you decided to take one little step today, and start loving yourself better. [Read: How to stop self-destructive behavior & change your life for good]

How to stop hating yourself and start loving yourself instead

There are different reasons why we hate ourselves. Maybe you didn’t accomplish a goal you set your mind to, made a mistake at the office, someone turned you down, or you regret something you did or wished you carried out differently.

The list is endless, we have a million excuses every single day to hate ourselves!

Everyone has this list in their heads. Some of us deal with this through drinking, drugs, avoidance, etc. But if you want to know how to stop hating yourself, learn how to minimize it.

Getting completely rid of self-loathing isn’t going to happen because as humans, we always want to improve on ourselves and our flaws.

You can reduce it and learn how to manage your self-hatred. Because let’s face it, we’re never going to be completely satisfied with ourselves. [Read: How to love yourself – The 23 best ways to find self-love and happiness]

1. What is it about yourself that you dislike?

You have self-hate for a reason. If you thought you were perfect, you wouldn’t have these negative emotions. So, what is it? Do you dislike the way your body looks? That you’re not in the job you want? That you allow people to take advantage of you?

There’s something, so, first and foremost, figure what triggers you. If you’re going to figure out how to stop hating yourself, you need to figure out which flaws and weaknesses bother you the most.

What is it about yourself you haven’t accepted or overcome yet? You need to be honest with yourself to love yourself better, including those parts you don’t like much. [Read: Why do people dislike me? 20 reasons why you’re so unpopular]

2. Know that you can change these flaws

We all have flaws. But you can change your flaws. Now, you may not physically change them, but mentally, you reduce them through a different point of view.

This means you accept your flaws and embrace them. They’re not going anywhere but think of them as something that makes you unique and positive.

So if you want to know how to stop hating yourself, it all starts by knowing you can change the flaws. Realize that you can always do something to improve yourself if you take action. You can’t be perfect, but you can at least work on your strengths by a little bit.

3. What are the triggers?

Now, most likely, you’re not thinking about the fact that you hate yourself every waking minute. However, there are things in your life which trigger these feelings. You need to understand what are the triggers for hating yourself.

Self-awareness is a vital key in any self-improvement, so if you want to become better, it begins by being more self-aware. [Read: How to build self-confidence – 16 ways to realize you’re worth it]

4. Stop trying to be the “yes” person

You want people to like you, and we get it. At the end of the day, we all want to be liked by others. But this need to be liked opens the door for other people to take advantage of us and walk all over us.

Even if you don’t like doing something, you say yes because you feel obligated. It’s now time to say no.

Saying ‘no’ is empowering and helps you avoid doing useless things that don’t bring you joy. Say ‘no’ even when it’s hard. Stop being a doormat and people pleaser, as you’ll likely keep hating yourself by doing so.

Set boundaries and respect yourself enough to say no when you don’t feel like doing something. You aren’t a bad person for saying no, you know? [Read: How to say no, stop pleasing people and feel awesome instead]

5. Stop overthinking

We know you ate three donuts just now, even though you’re on a diet. But who cares? It happened and what you need to do is move on. See, when we hate ourselves, we constantly think about the negative things we’ve done.

But if you’re not acknowledging what and why you did something that you shouldn’t have, then you won’t help yourself.

You need to look at why you did what you did and then change your perspective. And remember, tomorrow is always a new day with new opportunities, and a clean slate too! [Read: How to stop overthinking – Secrets to go from overthinker to relaxer]

6. Reflect on your indulgences

We all indulge in things that aren’t needed in our lives, and this is the world we live in. Our whole existence is based on us buying things that we don’t need. But, there’s a reason why you buy or overeat; you want instant gratification. But that’s only for the short term.

If you want to learn how to stop hating yourself, focus on not indulging in things that won’t actually make you happy in the long run. Short-term happiness won’t help you.

We live in such a consumerist world that we tend to fill the void in our lives with material objects. This just does more harm than good. So if you want to learn how to stop hating yourself, reflect on your indulgences. [Read: 27 ways to focus on yourself and make your own sunshine]

7. Don’t hide the hate

Usually, when we hate something about ourselves, we conceal it, hiding it away from the world. We all have features or qualities that we hate about ourselves but exposing and embracing them works out better.

You shouldn’t hide how much you despise your body or yourself. If you want to learn how to stop hating yourself, stop hiding the insecurities you feel about yourself. Embrace them and stop running away from them. After all, your flaws make you who you are.

8. Know that everyone has self-hate

There is literally no one in the world that doesn’t hate some part of them. So, what you need to do is overcome the expectations of what people have of you.

Completely remove the idea that you need to do certain things in a certain way because at the end of the day, who gives a f*ck!

Stop putting unnecessary expectations on yourself if you want to love yourself better. You don’t have to please everyone because the only person who matters is yourself at the end of the day. [Read: How to stop caring – 20 steps to not care and put yourself first]

9. Forgive

Forgiveness is such an essential aspect of loving yourself better. You will always hate yourself if you never forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made or your particular flaws. This means you should forgive yourself and the people around you.

Remember the quote, “hurt people, hurt people.”

If you’re hurt and full of self-hate, you project that onto others because you’re insecure. You need to actually work on forgiving yourself and others.

It’s easy to say it, but it’s hard to do as you recognize how everyone is surrounded by shame and say things even though they’re good people. [Read: 15 positive ways to forgive others and unburden your mind]

10. You’re going to mess up

Listen, reducing your self-hate won’t happen overnight. In fact, you’ll do things that aren’t going to be in your favor. Maybe you’ll get wasted on a Saturday night or degrade someone else. This will happen.

But, the point is that you need to acknowledge these mistakes and build off of your failures.

Stop being so hard on yourself and realize you will mess up, one way or another. Be easy on yourself and accept that you’re going to experience setbacks and failures – and that’s okay!

It’s all part of being human. Messing up doesn’t mean you should hate yourself further, but it’s an opportunity to be kinder to yourself.

11. Don’t listen to your brain

Here’s the thing, both negative and positive things you say about yourself are kind of full of bullshit. You’re not the most amazing person in the world, nor are you a sack of shit.

So, banish both of those ideologies out of your head. Both apply enormous pressure on yourself.

Your mind is often lying to you, and the majority of your negative thoughts come from a place of fear or insecurity. So if your thoughts tend to dwell on a negative note, don’t listen to all your thoughts.

It’s never valid to listen to your brain *unless your thoughts are full of positivity*. [Read: Feeling unlovable? 12 life-changing truths you need to know]

12. You’re human

We have so much pressure to find what fulfills us and find out who we are. Remember, this takes years to discover. Stop pressuring yourself.

You don’t need to cure cancer or become a famous actor. That isn’t what life is about. If you want to learn how to stop hating yourself, it starts by accepting you’re human.

Stop trying to be perfect all the time, as that’s an impossible standard. Allow yourself to accept your humanity by embracing even your imperfections and flaws. Life is too short to hate yourself so much constantly, you know. [Read: 15 ways to discover self-love and happiness]

13. Don’t let your past define you

In order to learn how to stop hating yourself, you should never let your past define you. It’s easy to get haunted by your past, especially if you have a pretty toxic or traumatizing one. But no matter what happened in your past, don’t let it define you.

What defines you more is your ability to get back up and prove that you’re so much stronger than you think. Let your resilience rise above, as that’s how you love yourself more.

No matter what your past consists of, you can never change it, so you might as well let it all go. [Read: How to let go of the past and be excited by the future]

14. Focus on your strengths rather than your flaws

If you keep focusing on your flaws rather than the best parts of yourself, you’ll keep despising yourself and hating yourself for every flaw.

The thing is, you’re human and you will have imperfections, whether you like it or not.

You have so many strengths and the best aspects that make you who you are. Just like you shouldn’t let your past define you, don’t let your flaws define you either. You are not your imperfections, ever. [Read: 18 ways to have high self-esteem and start winning at life]

15. Surround yourself with positive people

The people you surround yourself with have a powerful impact on how you love yourself. If you’re always around those who stir up unnecessary drama and negativity, that’s the kind of person you’ll also become.

If you want to learn how to stop hating yourself, you must change the people you surround yourself with. If you’re constantly around people who put you down rather than lift you, reflect if these are the friends you need in your life. [Read: Best lesson to live by – Surround yourself with positive people]

16. Don’t go towards the self-sabotaging road

No matter what you’re dealing with, never let yourself go towards the self-sabotaging road. We assure you that you’ll hate yourself more if you keep that up.

So even if it’s easy to drown your sorrows with a bottle of tequila or stop caring what you do with your life, you’ll instantly regret it.

Loving yourself takes a lot of self-awareness and courage to do so, even if you’re suffering from a broken heart inside.

Always incorporate healthy habits. Even if the results aren’t instantaneous, they work, unlike short-term distractions that seem to work but only hurt you further!

17. Use positive affirmations

Positive affirmations can benefit you so much in overcoming self-hate. In a world where it’s so easy to hate yourself, positive affirmations are the encouragement you need to keep going.

Don’t hesitate to tell yourself that you’re amazing or that you’re worthy of success and love. It might seem cheesy to do or say, but it helps reframe your mind from negative to positive! [Read: Words of affirmation – How to use them & 20 examples to say it right]

18. Treat yourself kindly

The same way you treat your best friend with kindness and compassion when sad, why shouldn’t you do the same for yourself? Remember to treat yourself with kindness if you want to love yourself more.

You have so many beautiful traits if you could only see that for yourself. There’s so much hate going on in the world, don’t add that hate to yourself. [Read: How to treat people better & live a much happier life in return]

19. Create goals

It’s easier to hate yourself when you don’t have goals, or you don’t have any sense of accomplishment. When you feel like you have no purpose or direction, it’s easier to pick on yourself and put yourself down. You think you aren’t worth anything, but that’s probably because you’re not doing anything you want to do.

In this instance, it can be helpful to create goals. Find out what you love doing and go towards those. When you become productive, this helps you find meaning, even in your self-worth and confidence. [Read: How to succeed in life – All you ever need to know!]

20. Prioritize yourself

If you’re always there for everybody and exhaust yourself every day, you will tend to hate yourself most days. This is because of your inability to set boundaries and your tendency to say yes all the time.

You have to change that if you want to learn how to stop hating yourself. You can be selfless and still prioritize yourself. You’re not self-absorbed just because of that.

[Read: Are you a giver who constantly feels unappreciated by others in your life?]

So, how to stop hating yourself?

You can stop hating yourself when you realize that life is too short to pick on your flaws and insecurities constantly. Perfectionism is a double-edged sword you will never achieve.

So instead of hating yourself, embrace even your flaws and imperfections. Nobody’s perfect, so why should you strive towards that imaginary standard anyway?

While it’s normal to hate yourself every and then, there’s a point where it becomes plain self-destructive and sabotaging in your life. But, you can always learn how to stop hating yourself with these steps, and guide yourself and your life, towards a much better future.

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Preeti Tewari Serai
Preeti Serai
Preeti, the founder of LovePanky, is an eternal optimist and believer in the beauty of love and life. With an exhaustive experience in love, relationships, and ...