Self-Love Starts Now! Here’s How To Date Yourself (And Why You Need To)

One of the most common, “New Year, New Me” goals I hear from my loved ones the most is, “I’ll take time to focus on myself this year.” Now, I don’t know what stops them, but I hardly see anyone make this resolution to fulfill it. Even though we try all our might to bring the focus inward, we just don’t seem to get it.

To help you better understand yourself – and push you to complete your new year resolution – I have compiled a list of ideas. Starting with – dating yourself.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “How can I date myself?” Well, how is dating yourself different from loving yourself? When you can spend time in self-love, I’m sure you can take some time to date yourself and understand yourself a little better. Look at it this way, how can you evaluate a potential partner if you don’t know yourself?

Dating yourself is also not what you’re probably imagining. When I say, “date yourself”, I mean taking time to understand your likes and dislikes, your goals – short term and long term, your love language – giving and receiving, your communication style, and more. It’s about becoming comfortable with who you are.

Scroll down to read why dating yourself is important, what kind of challenges you might have to face, and how to date yourself with some fun solo date ideas and activities for you!

Why Should You Date Yourself?

If you’re wondering about the strangeness of this concept, let me tell you all the benefits dating yourself can have on your overall health;

1. It Helps Boost Confidence

You don’t have to depend on others for your happiness. When you date yourself, you learn to rely on yourself for your happiness and validation. And this move only helps boost your confidence and self-esteem. Fun, isn’t it? Now you won’t have to rely on others for simple things.

2. It Helps You Gain A Better Understanding Of Yourself

When you date yourself, you take time out to know who you are, what you like, and how you process things. When was the last time you discovered something new about yourself? A passion, hobby, quirk, or even a pet peeve? You explore and rediscover so much when you date yourself.

3. It Aids Personal Growth

Dating yourself means you’re helping yourself learn about the little things in your life. It can help you take a new language, learn how to make that lasagna you’ve been dreaming of, or take up a new hobby. When you take time to spend it with yourself, you encourage personal growth.

4. It Helps Improve Relationships With Others

You never know how others work until you know how you work. If you want to have healthy relationships with others, then that means having a healthy relationship with yourself, and this begins when you begin dating yourself.

Dating Yourself: Challenges You Face

Dating yourself can be confused with narcissism and self-indulgence, but it’s not that. It’s about discovering or rediscovering who you are.

Nonetheless, some reasons that can make you feel uncomfortable with this concept could include;

• Societal pressures: Many people might make you think or even believe that dating yourself is a lame, selfish, and uncool thing.
• Negativity bias: Your negative experiences might triumph over positive thoughts making dating yourself challenging.
• Fears: You might have some deeply-buried fears about yourself that you are not willing to dig up again.
• Self-Judgment: There could be some self-judgmental thoughts that might prevent you from dating yourself as you’d like to.

How To Date Yourself?

Don’t know where to start when dating yourself? Here are some ways how to date yourself;

1. Begin With Self-Care

Begin your self-dating journey with self-care. This means pampering yourself with flowers, candle-lit dinner for one, or warm bubble baths. Self-care is about boosting your well-being. Did you know that self-care can prevent diseases and can even help cope with chronic illnesses?

So, what are you waiting for? Start your self-care journey now!

2. Focus On Physical And Mental Health

Now that you’ve begun caring about your needs, it’s time to focus on your physical and mental health. This means you need to focus on maintaining a healthy sleep schedule, eating healthily, and keeping your stress levels in control. Exercise regularly and make sure you take time to care for your physical and mental needs as you would do your emotional ones.

3. Follow With Self-Compassion

Now, while all that’s taken care of, it’s time to follow that with some self-compassion. You wouldn’t treat your loved ones without compassion, would you? Then why should you do it yourself?

Now that you’re dating yourself, you need to follow your heart and be self-compassionate. Try to quiet the negative voice in your head with positive affirmations as much as you can. Treat yourself as if you were your best friend!

4. Avoid Unhealthy Distractions

You need to avoid unhealthy activities like binge-watching, overeating, or using unhealthy substances like alcohol to numb yourself to your feelings. These activities might help relieve some issues, but they will be temporary.

You need to be honest with yourself and notice your feelings without judging yourself too hard. Try some journaling or mindfulness meditation as ways to fight unhealthy distractions.

5. End With Self-Love And Self-Gratitude

Now, the most important relationship you have in your life is with yourself. So, you need to learn how to love and appreciate yourself. It’s important to keep your self-esteem and confidence high. Believe in yourself and your ideas.

You can also promote self-love by taking yourself out for dinners or a stroll around an art gallery. Initially, it might feel uncomfortable, but with constant outings with yourself, you’ll get used to it.

Along with self-love, it’s time to focus on self-gratitude. You need to appreciate who you are and what you have. Practicing gratitude can help you feel happy, reduce stress, increase immunity, and even bring positive changes to your well-being.

Solo Date Ideas For You!

• Dress up and go out for a meal at your favorite cafe.
• Go and have a quiet walk in the park.
• Go and see a movie that you’ve been wanting to see and while there, treat yourself to a bucket of popcorn.
• Write a list of things you are proud of and are glad you accomplished.
• Try a new coffee shop in your city every week and rank them.
• Go out and click pictures of different things of a specific color.
• Buy yourself a cup of coffee and read a book in a cozy place.
• Revisit old photos or places and reminisce about how far you have come.
• Write a letter to your future self/ a future partner/future children describing your life at this moment in time.

Resolution – Love Myself

Learning to take care of yourself and appreciating yourself when you’ve hardly done it before could be challenging in the beginning, but with a new year and new mindset, strive to change that. Make sure you give yourself due time and spend some quality time with yourself to understand who you are, truly.

When you start dating yourself, you can promote self-love, and personal growth, and boost your confidence and happiness without relying on others for the same.

Resolution; Love myself starts now!

I hope this blog helped you understand the importance of dating yourself and how to date yourself.

For more, you can write to us at info@calmsage.com or DM us on social media. You can also share your solo date ideas and thoughts in the comments below!

Take Care and Stay Safe!