Project: Love Myself

My biggest challenge in life is to accept myself for who I am. Actually, not just accept myself but to love myself.

I have to remember that I don't have to be like other people and also that other people don't have to like me for me to be valuable.

And this is how Project: Love Myself was born.

I am going to make it my goal, going forward, to start to fall in love with myself. At the start of any budding romance, the first thing is to get to know the person that you're hopefully going to fall in love with. As this is an arranged marriage, of sorts, I already know that we are destined to be happy together so I don't have to worry about hopefully turning into definitely.

So, for this to happen I have to set myself a list of 'love' challenges.

Based on nothing more scientific that I think they sound like a good idea, I will do the following:

• Wink at myself in the mirror each morning as if I have an exciting and mysterious secret. This is to make me like myself and become my friend. What are friends without secrets?

• Put links to my Pinterest and Twitter accounts on my blog so that I can force myself not to be ashamed or try and hide who I really am. If I'm happy with myself then why should I care whether other people know the 'real me' or not?

• Stand naked in front of the mirror (when I'm getting dressed or undressed - otherwise it's just weird!) and see my real body. Like what you see. Tell myself that.

• Practise the art of speaking to myself as if I was someone else. You wouldn't tell someone else they were a fat, unlovable waste of space. Or at least I hope you wouldn't!

• Write down lots of random things about myself that I'm 'secretly' proud of. Stop them from being secret just because I think that other people will judge me for them.

•  Don't try to tone down your enthusiasm over things that you like. Even if other people don't like the same things - you do. And that's fine. What fun would it be if we were all the same? To gain extra credit - in conversations, tell people about the things that you like without expecting affirmations.

• If someone gives you a compliment - say thank you! You don't have to tell people that it's a hand me down, cheap or just from the supermarket - you don't owe anyone explanations!

•  If someone doesn't like something you do, own or wear - that doesn't matter. Take criticism in the spirit that it's delivered to you but the underlying thing is, if I like it and feel good with/in it then that's all that matters.

•  Smile - I'm cute when I smile! (That was really difficult to write but well done me!)

•  Remember that nobody's perfect. Everybody has hang ups. Everybody worries. Everybody is real.

Here endith the list.

J x