5 Strategies For Leaders To Cultivate More Self-love In Life and Business

Do you find yourself constantly being hard on yourself in business?

Are you easily frustrated, wishing you were further along?

You may find yourself measuring success in financial metrics, and if you don’t achieve a goal, you end up feeling guilty, ashamed, or worse - demoralized. 

Leaders, know that it’s perfectly okay to feel this way. You’re not the only business owner who struggles with issues of worthiness. 

While you know that the work you do is important and meaningful, it’s just a fact that sometimes business can be tough. 

But if you want to truly succeed in business, the most important factor in your success will be how much you love, value AND trust yourself.

After all, your self-love will often direct the actions you take and the paths you choose.

So in today’s post, I’ll be sharing the 5 TOP strategies I use with both myself and my clients to cultivate more self-worth and self-love in business. I’ll be sharing:

1. Why it’s important to celebrate the small wins
2. How to define success on your own terms
3. What you can do to keep toxic positivity in check
4. How to remember you are enough
5. How you can set small intentions you can achieve

Let’s go! 👇🏾

1/ Why It’s Important to Celebrate The Small Wins

Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, small wins add up.

You may often dismiss them as not being significant enough to celebrate. But these small wins are equally important as their larger counterparts.

Every day, I try to celebrate 3 small wins by writing them down. Doing this helps me cultivate enoughness and see how far I’ve come. You can also do this on a weekly or monthly basis.

By celebrating your successes, even the small ones, you'll be more encouraged to continue on the path of progress rather than becoming disillusioned by continued setbacks along the way.

They give you the motivation and momentum you need to continue running towards your goal. 💪🏾

2/ How to Define Success On Your Own Terms

Many people might think success means making more money, clients, or sales. Others might define it as reaching one’s own full potential.

It’s easy to get caught up in these metrics and other people’s versions of success when creating your definition of success. 

Maybe you tell yourself you’ll be successful when you hit your next income goal or reach a certain sales target. But instead of only looking at outside metrics, ask yourself what true success looks like to YOU.

Maybe it’s freedom and flexibility. Maybe it’s inner fulfillment. Maybe it’s getting to work with a certain type of client. Whatever it is, it is unique to YOU.

For me, lifestyle is an incredibly important factor in my business. I don’t try to push my private leadership coaching clients in any one direction, but rather reflect on what’s truly important to them. 

3/ Be mindful of toxic positivity. 

We live in a perpetual positive thinking culture, where positivity is good and negativity is bad. 

You’re told to take more time to appreciate the positives in the world around you. 

On the surface that may seem like a good idea, but there are deep flaws in this logic. This is what I often refer to as toxic positivity.

Believing in this notion that you need to be positive all the time can change the way you look at failures and problems in your business and life.

Self-love doesn’t mean forcing yourself to be positive and happy all of the time. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for yourself is allowing yourself to truly feel ALL of life’s emotions - even the tough ones.

So when you experience problems in your business, embrace the issue. Recognize what you’re feeling. 

Then, take the time to explore and investigate the issue. You don’t want to just let it fester and get worse in your business or life. But you DON’T want to ignore it and tell yourself to “just be positive” either!

4/ Remember you are enough.

Are you feeling hopeless and like nothing will ever change in your business? 

Do you feel like you don’t know your worth or how to love yourself?

As an entrepreneur, it can be so easy to feel like you’re not moving fast enough. You may even find yourself upset that you’re not hitting your goals as quickly as you’d like.

This feeling of dissatisfaction leads to a lack of self-confidence. And without self-love, you feel you won’t really achieve what you desire. 

But you need to remember you ARE making progress. Slow growth is still growth.

So embrace where you are on your business journey and remember that you ARE enough, even if it’s taking you longer than you thought to reach your destination. 

Learn how to love yourself so you can feel your own self-worth. 

5/ Set small intentions you can achieve.

One small intention can change your life.

If you find it difficult to shut off for the day, you might be putting TOO much on your plate.

It’s okay if you have big goals too, but setting small intentions helps to avoid overwhelm and you can make consistent progress. 

A way I avoid this is by giving myself one KEY intention for the day. 

I make this intention manageable. It’s a task, one that could get done in an hour or so - not an entire project.

The satisfaction you feel when you complete the smaller tasks sets the foundation for achieving bigger ones in your business. 

When you give yourself small, realistic intentions, you can shut off for the day knowing you got your most important work done. You’ll feel peace of mind knowing you’re working towards your vision without feeling overwhelmed.

Remember, self-worth and self-love are essential in business. They go hand in hand with success in both life and business. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by the daily tasks and projects in your business that you self-sabotage thinking you’re either doing too much or too little.

By celebrating your wins and taking the time to recognize your self-worth, you’ll be able to understand that it is truly loving yourself FIRST that leads to true success.

Tell me in the comments ⬇️  which one of these strategies are you going to integrate into your business to amp up your self-love? ❤️

Pssst. If you tag me in a story and include #AskAkua on Instagram or LinkedIn, I’ll share a special little gift with you. 🎁

. . .

To listen to this podcast on the go, check out the full episode here

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