Have you ever noticed the way we speak to ourselves, whether it’s out loud or just our internal dialogue? Sometimes it's even a passing comment about ourselves in a conversation, such as 'I'm so silly' or 'I'm so stupid' when we have simply just made a mistake, we do it so often that we don’t even notice that we do it anymore.

And we wonder why we don’t have much confidence. It's because we have started to convince ourselves that what we say or think is true, and this can take a huge toll on our mental health and how we see ourselves.

Sometimes, we even punish ourselves. For example, you may have had some ‘junk food’ or a takeaway or just had a 'lazy day', the next day, we give ourselves such a hard time and force ourselves to exercise and eat nothing but salads and healthy food for the week.

Ask yourself this, would you make your friend do this? Would you call your friend stupid? Would you force your friend to exercise to the point they are exhausted? Would you be mean and judgemental to your friend? Would you criticise them? I highly doubt any of us would because why would we want to make someone feel bad? We would never dream of telling our friend any of this – so, why do we do it to ourselves?

The way that you speak to yourself matters

It’s the question I’m sure we have all asked ourselves or have thought about. Let’s be honest, there could be a huge list of reasons why we are hard on ourselves; We compare ourselves to others, we don’t fit into society’s ‘criteria’ in beauty, education or lifestyles, or even people in your life have made you feel a certain way about ourselves.

There could be plenty of reasons, but we need to get out of this mindset because if we don’t subconsciously, it will become a habit where we dislike ourselves. This can lead to you to limit your thinking and limit your ability; it can cause depression and stress and, eventually, can affect your relationships with others.

We need to learn to be our own best friend and love ourselves. We need to; be nice to ourselves, speak to ourselves nicer, acknowledge our needs, take care of ourselves emotionally and physically. Imagine what you would say to your best friend when they are in time of need; speak to yourself like that because it is now your time to get support from yourself, not just everyone else.

We give ourselves such a hard time, but remember we are the only ones who live with ourselves forever. We all want to have a good and happy life, which all begins with us and our relationship with ourselves. Once we are more satisfied with ourselves, we can then start looking at other parts of our life we want to change and do, because if we lack confidence in ourselves, it stops us from allowing us to do what we love to do or try new things.