Did you know that January is the most common month for people to start a self-improvement resolution? That’s right — New Year, New You resolutions are most popular in January. Most resolutions are made to be completed in 12 months, but is that really what is viable with self-love? The short answer is no.

There’s nothing wrong with setting goals to improve yourself at the beginning of every year. The problem comes from trying to tackle those resolutions in such a short amount of time, as most people set their goals to be completed within a year.

This type of resolution for self-love isn't realistic. Most people who achieve self-love have practised over many years, and have ridden the waves that come with self-love. Setting yourself a goal to achieve true self-love in 12 months is unrealistic.

So if you are interested in starting your self-love journey, I have created a 30-day challenge for you to achieve self-love in your own time.

You Don’t Have To Set Your Goals To Be Completed Within A Year

New years resolutions are often very bold goals, goals that you aren't prepared for. However, changing our point of view on our goals, and making smaller goals within a big goal can lead to a more successful resolution.

Small Goals

Break down your big ultimate goal into smaller goals. Do you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and love the person looking back at you? Start by smiling at yourself in the mirror every single time you look at yourself.

Do you want to have a healthier lifestyle? Start by exercising daily, even a half an hour walk outdoors. Or change one of your meals to a healthier option; stop having mac and cheese for dinner and spend half an hour cooking up a meat (or meat substitute) pasta dish. That way you are getting protein, carbs and fat in one meal.

Longer Time Frame

Set your big goal to a longer time frame. A big life-changing goal should be something you continually strive towards. The smaller goals can be made into a year goal. Using the examples above;

Be able to smile at yourself on every reflective surface without having to think about it.

Have at least two meals in a day be nutritious and delicious.

30 Days Is Long Enough To Make A Difference

A lot of people try to do everything at once when they make New Year’s resolutions, and then are disappointed when they can’t keep up with it after the first couple weeks. Changing your lifestyle drastically is often not feasible as you won't be able to keep up with it for long.

Twenty-eight to thirty days is all it takes to make a habit, and that is what this challenge is about. But don’t try to do everything on this list in one month. You’ll end up doing more harm than good if you try to rush through everything at once.

Instead, try to focus on one or two things on this list each month. You’ll be able to make progress while also taking the time you need to make sure the progress sticks.

But You Said It Was Only A 30-Day Challenge Amy.

Yes, you are correct. This challenge is only a 30-day challenge, yet above I have written about doing self-love for multiple months. Well, the thing is, once you learn to do this challenge, you can keep up this routine for all the items listed below.

Remember, you don’t have to do everything on this list in just 30 days. You can make this a yearly thing if you want to. What matters most is that you set a goal for yourself, and you stick to it.

You Can Incorporate Self-Care into Your Routine

One of the best things about New Year’s resolutions is that they can be incorporated into your daily routine. If you’re trying to eat healthier, it’s as simple as choosing healthier options when you’re shopping or packing a lunch for work. Trying to practice self-care, however, can be difficult when you don’t know where to start.

What does self-care even entail? How can you do it every day?

You can incorporate self-care into your daily routine much easier when you know what you’re trying to accomplish. Plus, if you make it part of your routine, it’s way less likely to be something you give up on in February like many New Year’s resolutions are.

Self-care is anything that enhances your health – mental or physical. Self-love is loving the way you are, who you are and everything you choose for yourself. Therefore, self-care can be rather easy to incorporate into your daily routine, and doing a bit of self-care every day can also lead to self-love.

What Self-Care Can I do That Leads To Self-love?

A couple of easy things you can do every day that leads to self-love are;

• Eating healthier
• Exercising
• Showering in a warm-hot shower
• taking care of your hair
• updating your skincare routine
• fitting out your wardrobe with clothes that fit your body

It’ll Be Hard, But That’s A Good Thing

That may seem like an odd thing to say, but hear me out. If you’re making a New Year’s resolution, chances are you want to make a positive change in your life. Self-love is not an easy task.

It’s something that requires a lot of time, patience, and practice. It’s going to be hard, but that’s what makes it worth it in the end. You’ll appreciate the effort you put into it so much more than you would if it was an easy task.

Don’t let the fact that it’s a bit harder than you expected to deter you from giving it your all. Let the challenge be something that pushes you forward so you can come out better on the other side.

Why Starting In January Can Be Better For You

There’s no better time than the beginning of the year to start making positive changes in your life. If you are looking to change things up a bit, whether that be improving an aspect of your life, or just starting a new tradition, January is the perfect time to do it.

You can easily help yourself to prepare for the big change that is loving yourself, in fact, you can read many of my posts to help you prepare. If you are someone who doesn't like big changes, then starting your self-love resolution can be better to start in the middle of the year so you can make the small changes over a longer period of time.

The Challenge Begins

It's time to choose which task(s) on this list that you will start with. Remember you can do every single task on this list, just take your time and make them into a routine before bombarding yourself with all the tasks at once.

Choose your task

• Daily positive affirmations
• Daily Journaling
• Changing negative thought patterns
• Eating healthy
• Exercising daily
• Mirror talk (talking to yourself positively in the mirror)

It's time to start your self-love challenge. Plan out your task, just one to begin with, I will provide a few details along the way of how you would do certain tasks.
Now that you have chosen your task, and planned out how you will break it down, let's get started.

Week 1 Day 1: Begin your day with your task. If you are eating healthy – take your healthy food to work, and if you haven't already prepared tomorrow's food, do that tonight. If you are exercising, go for a walk before work. If you are journaling, write all the good things you want to achieve for the day.

Week 1 Day 2-4: Continue doing your daily task for this challenge. Don't beat yourself up if you miss a day, just continue the task the next day.

Week 1 Day 5: Today you are going to improve the task you are doing. If you are eating healthy, check in with what you eat the entire day. Are you snacking after a good meal? Are you eating really big meals but want to lose weight? Adjust your task to make sure you are getting the most out of it.
If you are doing mirror talk, are you making the words you say to yourself useful? What if you tried saying things you like about yourself?

Week 1 Day 6-7: Continue on the task. Hopefully, you did your task on day 5 and improved what you were already doing. Try to keep up with that momentum, however, if you fall back to days 2-4, that's okay. Just keep doing your task daily.

Week 2 Day 1-3: Continue with your task. The main goal now is to make sure you don't miss a day of your task. You will better the days that you do your chosen task.

Week 2 Day 4: Make an extra effort today with your task. If you are doing daily affirmations, recount an affirmation every 4 hours to yourself. If you are journaling, write your journal entry in the morning and confirm what happened that day in the evening.

Week 2 Day 5-7: Continue with your task, you should not have missed a day at all. Once you achieve 2 weeks of the challenge, reward yourself with something!

Week 3 Day 1: Now is the time to add in a second task if you want. You will repeat the process from week 1 day 1 for your new task. Start basic and work your way up. But remember that if you are adding another task, you must still keep up with your first chosen task.

Week 3 Day 2-7: Continue your daily tasks, task 1 should be a piece of your daily routine by now. Task 2 should still be at the more basic level. At the end of week 3 day 7, give yourself another reward for continuing the challenge.

Week 4 day 1: Task 1 should now be second nature, and it should be something that you look forward to doing. Hopefully, by now, you have started to see some results from this task. Task 2 should be a step up this week, just like in week 3. You should have rewarded yourself twice by now, and this is an important step. Doing things that help yourself is really good for you, so rewarding yourself with good behaviour with something you'll enjoy will push yourself to do more self-love tasks.

Week 4 Day 2-6: Keep going, you are almost at the end of your challenge, this is where you need to dig deep and continue with your tasks. Remember that stopping is easy, continuing is hard. But everything good in life is a challenge, but having a good and happy life is so much more beneficial than self-deprivation.

Week 4 Day 7-Week 5 Day 1: You are on the home stretch, start planning what reward you'll give yourself at the end of the challenge. This should be a reward that pushes you forward in your self-love journey, but also something that makes you really happy.

Week 5 Day 2: You've made it! This is the last day of the challenge. Tomorrow you get to reward yourself with both the knowledge that you took this challenge and should now have a self-love task in your daily routine and also that reward you are giving yourself! I am so proud of you for doing 30 days of self-love, and I hope that this has pushed you to continue your self-love journey!