A Love Letter to You (from You)

Ever write yourself a love letter? If you’re thinking that sounds all sorts of odd, maybe even vain, hear me out first.

After a particularly sh**ty day at work, I ended it feeling unsure of myself, a tirade of self-criticism playing out in what felt like the internal feedback loop from hell. Thankfully, brooding isn’t my status quo, so instead of harping on some interactions that acted as the catalyst for this dejection, I took responsibility for how I reacted to external factors, and with that, I took control of how I was feeling in that moment. I wrote down the doubts that were bubbling at the surface of my psyche that day, then, I jotted down why each one of them was nagging me. Gaining momentum, I moved beyond the “what” and the “why,” countering each worry about my capabilities with two to five reasons they were unfounded. Then, I transferred all of those reasons into a letter to myself, and as I reread them as though proofing them for accuracy, I realized that in essence, I’d written myself a #LoveLetter. I listed skill after attribute, victory after accomplishment. Talk about robbing self-doubt of its power over me once I deconstructed it, and you can absolutely do it too.

We all talk about the power of positive affirmation; in fact, it’s a pervasive theme in our lives. Yet, before this particular self-love letter, I’d never really put that abstract theme into practice to tackle problems.

The moral of the story is, give it a try on the days when you’re feeling unsure of you. The self awareness and the self love you practice in taking on this exercise is invaluable in unmasking your strengths, and beyond that, your limitless potential.

I’ll leave you with a piece of my love letter to myself to end this post, which went a little something like this: “even when sh*t gets really hard, you’re able to put your feelings aside and tackle the hell our your to-do list, week after week. You’re tougher than you think.”