Self-love is rarely linked to success or achievement in one’s life goals. Unfortunately, when most of us were taught how to accomplish life goals, we were never taught that self-love was a necessary ingredient. 

I used to think success was about staying up late, aggressively working hard, and minimizing sleep. In fact, this is the wrong way to think about sustainable success.

This path left me stressed, unhappy, burnt out, and less willing to stress others because I thought I had to do it myself. And even more important, it cost me my health and my relationships with my family and friends. This was not the success I was craving.

I didn’t realize the power behind cultivating self-love for the genuine success I was craving. Because I lacked self-love for myself, I chased my goals out of fear of losing them, my self-esteem depended on accomplishment, and my inner voice became my fiercest judge.

Self-love can be associated with your inner voice. Your inner voice judges or encourages you in every facet of your life. It can be your biggest cheerleader or your own worst enemy. Unfortunately, many people have not taken the time to listen and hear their inner voice that governs their behaviors, how they treat themselves, and how they treat others. 

More often than not, most people’s inner voice is not very nice at all. If you don’t consciously cultivate a healthy inner voice that ultimately contributes to your self-love, it won’t be expressed in your life.

Here’s the truth: How can you enjoy your success, happiness, and relationships if you constantly beat yourself up inside or feel like you are not worthy of them? 

So many people try to go out and conquer their world for material success but haven’t even conquered themselves yet. This type of success is not enduring and, quite frankly, exhausting.

And if your inner voice was anything like mine, you can become number to it over time as if we are supposed to just live with it. My inner voice – which was very condemning and overly critical – was so normal that I almost became unconscious of it. Yet, unbeknownst to me, it was affecting my future success, behaviors, and how I treated myself, how I treated others, but I didn’t even know it.

Our inner voice is our judge that lies deep within our mind, commonly referred to as self-esteem. And as most of us know, self-esteem – confidence in one’s abilities and respect for yourself – plays a massive role in one’s success, happiness, and fulfillment. Without confidence, we stay stagnant, and growth isn’t possible.

“Love yourself unconditionally, just as you love those closest to you despite their faults.” — Les Brown

How does self-love affect your future success in life? 

Think of your self-love as a direct reflection of how you treat others around you. In fact, that’s precisely what it is. Your self-love mirrors how you treat those closest to you in the workplace, in relationships, and in friendships.

If you marginalize yourself, you marginalize the people around you. If you don’t think you can do something or accomplish a task, you unconsciously won’t trust others to get it done either.

If you don’t have the patience or condemn yourself when you feel like you did something wrong, this behavior will be reflected in how you treat your coworkers or your significant other. You will be less forgiving when they’ve made a mistake. You will condemn those close to you, just like you condemn yourself.

Why is this? It’s because how we treat ourselves internally is an exact reflection of how we treat others externally.

Most people would say, “well, I don’t need others to succeed.” If you think this is true, just ask any successful person how they became successful, and I am sure they would tell you their success would have been futile if they did not have the cooperation of others around them.

And cooperation, agreement, and trust – how lasting companies and true sustainable success is built – are all derived from the self-love and compassion you’ve cultivated within yourself first.

Everything is built and destroyed externally by how you feel about yourself internally. So, when you want to accelerate your success in life – hitting the gym, eating right, and reading self-blogs are great – but don’t forget about cultivating more compassion, self-love, and patience for yourself.

If you don’t, your life can feel like you’re taking 1 step forward in material success and two steps back in your inner success. And trust me, the inner success of self-love, contentment, and a calm poise is what your soul really craves. This is the only way how you get to enjoy your success and make your life worth living.

So, forgive yourself for your mistakes, be patient with your pitfalls, give yourself the self-respect you deserve, and picture yourself as already successful internally – once you’ve practiced this every day, you have found the secret to a sustainable and worthwhile success.