27 Easy Self Love Exercises [+ FREE Printable] (2024)

Last Updated on March 20, 2024 by Saskia Friedrich

Are you looking for some self love exercises to break the cycle of low self-esteem you have? Are you sick and tired of all the negative self-talk in your mind?

There’s no doubt about it, self-love is essential.

It is undeniably linked to your mental health, positive feelings, and high self-esteem. But that doesn’t necessarily make it easy.

In fact, self-love is one of the hardest things to do.

We are often our worst critics, holding ourselves to the highest expectations and berating ourselves when we make mistakes.

But self love exercises are a great way to ditch negative thoughts, improve your self-esteem, quiet your inner critic, and overcome self-care barriers.

So, if you’re ready to take the first step and learn about self esteem exercises, keep reading for a complete list of self love exercises you can do every day, as often as you want or need.

I will also pop in the link at the end of the post so you can download my FREE printable of these daily self love exercises! Self-love worksheets for adults (pdf) are a great help to practice self-love.

Let’s get to the list of self love tools that will help empower you to start loving yourself (again).

Disclaimer: Some of the links here are affiliate links and I may earn if you click on them, AT NO EXTRA cost to you. Hope you find the information here useful! Thanks.

27 Daily Self Love Exercises To Love Yourself More

1. Write A Love Letter To Yourself
2. Say Positive Affirmations
3. Emotional Freedom Technique
4. Practice Self-Care
5. Set Healthy Boundaries
6. Start A Gratitude Journal
7. Meditation
8. Journaling
9. Change Your Thoughts
10. Celebrate Every Success
11. Forgive Yourself For Past Mistakes
12. Stop Apologizing Unnecessarily
13. Wear Clothes You Love
14. Make Your Space Your Own
15. Smile More
16. Treat Yourself Out For A Meal
17. Listen To Yourself
18. Buy Yourself A Gift
19. Have Screen-Free Time
20. Eat Healthy
21. Exercise
22. Do Something You’ve Always Wanted to Do
23. Make Time For Your Needs
24. Stop Catching Up With Toxic People
25. Plan Your Future
26. Embrace Your Uniqueness
27. Be Mindful

27 Self Love Exercises That Can Alter Your Mindset For The Better

You wonder how to exercise self love and practice self intimacy exercises?

Here are my 27 favorite self love techniques to help you with self acceptance, self care, self awareness, and self esteem.

Learn how to love yourself with these easy self-love activities!

1. Write A Love Letter To Yourself

The most important relationship you have is the one you have with yourself.

But it is often the most difficult one to express love and appreciation for. This is where writing a love letter to yourself can be a good self love activity.

It’s a simple, low-pressure way to appreciate your true self.

Self love letters are a great self-esteem exercise because it allows you to focus on your most positive qualities, which can help improve how you feel about yourself.

2. Say Positive Affirmations Daily

If you have a hard time seeing the positive in life, different situations, your abilities, and so on, then saying self-love affirmations can be one of the best things you do for self-love.

Affirmations are positive statements you repeat to yourself with the goal of self-encouragement.

Some popular self-love affirmations include:

• I choose to be kind to myself
• I am grateful to be the person I am

With affirmations, it is important to choose affirmations that resonate with you. They won’t be nearly as effective if you don’t believe them.

Related: Miracle Morning Routine

3. Emotional Freedom Technique

The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a self-help tool that uses tapping to help reduce stress, anxiety, and negative self-talk.

What’s great about this self-love exercise is that you can do it anywhere.

All you need to do is tap your fingers on specific points of the body while repeating a self-love affirmation.

If you want to learn how to do EFT, check out this guide, which tells you the best ways to do it and the best spots to tap your body.

4. Practice Self-Care

When looking for exercises to love yourself more, doing more self-care should be at the top of your list. This is because self care and self love activities go hand in hand.

Self-care can be anything from:

• Getting a massage
• Doing a hair treatment
• Taking a nap
• Having a bubble bath
• Reading a good book

Check out these 23 self care bath ideas for an ultimate bath routine!

Don’t have that much time? Don’t worry, try out this relaxing shower routine instead!

Essentially, self intimacy exercises are anything that can help you relax and recharge.While doing self-care activities, try your best to stay in the present moment.

This will help you to get the most out of your quality time with yourself.

More self love ideas for women and beginners:

• 30-Day Self-Care Challenge
• 8 Areas Of Self Care
• Simple 5 Minute Self-Care Activities
• Barriers To Self-Care And How To Let Go
• 35 Self-Care Night Ideas
• 100 Self Care Ideas To Feel Recharged
• 85 Self-Care Activities For Fall
• 121 Self-Care Saturday Ideas

5. Set Healthy Boundaries

A great way to practice self-love is by setting healthy boundaries with yourself and others. This means understanding when to say no, and knowing what’s best for your mental and physical health.

Of course, spending time to help others can be a good thing, but not when it’s at your own expense.

To set boundaries, take some time to think about your limits, how you want to communicate them, and how you will uphold them.

6. Start A Gratitude Journal

A grateful mind is linked to having more recurring positive thoughts, feeling happy, and seeing the good in life. That’s why expressing gratitude is a great self love exercise.

While there are many ways you can practice gratitude, such as thinking about what you’re grateful for at the end of the day, starting a gratitude journal is one of the most effective self-love writing exercises.

This is because writing down what you are grateful for helps slow down your mind, enables you to identify even more things you’re thankful for, and gives you something to look back on if you’re feeling down or sad one day.

7. Meditation

Do you wonder how to improve your self-love?

We live in a very fast-paced world. Things move very quickly, and it can often feel like we need to hurry to keep up.

But, sometimes, the best thing you can do for self-love is to slow down. A great way to do this is through meditation.

To meditate, you should find a comfortable spot, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing.

Doing this for even just 5 minutes can help slow down your mind and body, allowing you to recognize self-love and kindness better.

8. Journaling

Our thoughts tend to move fast, making it difficult even to notice how negative some of your thoughts actually are.

This can include thoughts about your actions, capabilities, and more. Self-love writing exercises, like journaling, can help you shine a light on those thoughts, which can help you change your thought patterns.

Journaling can also be a great way to process any negative emotions you might be dealing with differently.

For example, if you are going through a tough time and feeling sad, journaling can be a great way to work out why you are sad, what you can do to feel better, or to process your feelings, etc.

New to journaling? Get yourself familiar with these 81 helpful journaling prompts for beginners.

Related: 50+ Healing Self Love Journal Prompts

9. Change Your Thoughts

Whether you’re stuck in a negative thought cycle or want to learn how to think more positively, learning how to change your thoughts can be an excellent self-love exercise to practice.

To change your thoughts, you first need to identify what they are. The best way to do this is by writing them down.

Once you’ve identified what they are, you can rewrite them so that they are more optimistic or, at the very least, neutral.

An example of this would be, instead of thinking, “I’m so stupid for making that mistake,” you can reframe it to “it’s okay, everyone makes mistakes. I’ll try my best to do better next time”.

It’s important to remember that changing your thoughts will take time. But by making a conscious effort to do this every day, you can improve your self-love.

10. Celebrate Every Success

Again, we live in a very fast-paced world, so we tend to move from thing to thing without much thought. But, this is not an ideal way to cultivate self-love.

In fact, going from task to task without celebrating your accomplishments is affirming to your subconscious that the work you’re doing is not important.

That’s why self-love exercises such as celebrating every success are essential. It can help you do good work, boost self-confidence, and give yourself positive reinforcement.

11. Forgive Yourself For Past Mistakes

Honestly, there isn’t a human on this planet that doesn’t make mistakes. They can be big or small mistakes, but they are just that, mistakes.

Berating yourself for a mistake doesn’t actually do anything positive. It harms your self-esteem, produces negative thoughts, and makes you second-guess everything you do moving forward.

You can start with self forgiveness exercises and learn from your mistakes instead of beating yourself up about them.

12. Stop Apologizing Unnecessarily

Are you someone who apologizes unnecessarily, or just to be polite?

While you might not think anything of it in the moment, apologizing when you don’t need to can be detrimental to your self-love.

You should absolutely apologize when the situation warrants it. But if you’re apologizing just to be friendly or as an involuntary impulse, it can leave you feeling small and insignificant.

So, in the future, try to be conscious of how often you’re saying sorry.

More Self Love Exercises . . .

13. Wear Clothes You Love

Being mindful and intentional about your physical appearance and what you wear can be a huge step towards more self-love.

This is because how you feel about your appearance can affect your self-esteem and confidence.

So, one of the best self-esteem exercises you can do is to wear clothes you love, that fit you well, and make you feel good about yourself.

It’s not about wearing the latest fashion or looking a certain way. It’s about feeling comfortable and confident in your skin, starting with how you dress.

14. Make Your Space Your Own

An essential aspect of self-love that is often overlooked is how we feel in our environment. So, one of the best exercises for self-love you can do is make your space your own.

Start by decluttering. A clean space can bring a fresh perspective and help to clear your mind.

Then, add items that make you feel good and inspired. Whether it’s artwork, photos, plants, or ornaments, adding these pieces can help make your space unique and help you feel more content.

Related: How To Get Motivated To Clean When Overwhelmed By Mess

15. Smile More

I know it can be hard to smile when feeling low. But studies show that smiling more can have a positive effect on self-love.

Not only does it make you look more attractive, but it can also help to reduce stress and improve your mood.

So, try to smile more. You can do this by setting a reminder to smile on your phone a few times a day or simply smiling more when interacting with people.

Smiling to yourself in the mirror as an exercise for self love is a good start too.

16. Treat Yourself Out For A Meal

Why wait for someone else to take you out to this one restaurant you’ve always wanted to go to? Longing for a certain type of food?

I know it can be a bit intimidating and it’s certainly a big step out of your comfort zone, but it’s worth it.

Taking yourself out for a meal (it can also be breakfast or lunch, if that makes it easier) is one of the self love exercises that helps you grow enormously and makes you feel proud of yourself.

17. Listen To Yourself

How often do you listen to the problems and opinions of your friends or family? You try to help them and give advice. Do you do the same for yourself?

A good self love activity is to listen to yourself, and don’t ever suppress your feelings and thoughts. They’re valid and just as important as someone else’s.

18. Buy Yourself A Gift

You’ve been looking at this particular dress or piece of jewelry in the window for ages, but can’t get yourself to buy it. Why is that?

We often think we’re not worthy enough of having nice or expensive things.

You live now and this is your time! If it makes you feel good, get yourself a gift from time to time.

19. Have Screen-Free Time

One of my favorite self love exercises! You will enjoy it and feel much better after it, trust me.

• No phone
• No laptop
• No tablet
• No TV

Nada! You will get creative and have variety in your daily routine. You might find yourself end up reading a book, decluttering, or doing some art work.

20. Eat Healthy

Show yourself respect and nourish your body with good food. Eating healthy will give you more energy and makes you happier.

21. Exercise

It doesn’t have to be a heavy workout with lots of equipment wearing fancy active wear. Just turn up your favorite music at home and dance like no one’s watching you.

What a mood-lifting self love exercise!

22. Do Something You’ve Always Wanted to Do

Give this self love activity a go! Nothing feels so satisfying when you can finally tick something off your bucket list! Take pictures and make sure to take note of it in your journal.

23. Make Time For Your Needs

Do you often find yourself holding off on going to the toilet or grabbing yourself some food or a drink?

Just another email to check, another request to process for your boss, . . . Take the time to have a break and tend to what you need in this instant moment.

24. Stop Catching Up With Toxic People

Removing toxic people from your life is a very liberating and effective self love activity. It’s basically a self love therapy that will boost your self esteem and will make you a happier person.

25. Plan Your Future

Planning your future is one of the self love activities to show yourself that you care about your life and that you want to grow and move forward. This is an aspect of self development exercises.

26. Embrace Your Uniqueness

You are unique, you are beautiful, and you are perfect the way you are. Stop comparing yourself to others and start accepting yourself for who you are!

27. Be Mindful

The last and most important self love exercise that sums up all of the above self love activities is mindfulness.

This is one of the most important daily self-love activities.

Be mindful about how you feel, accept your feelings and act accordingly, don’t rush, and don’t feel like you HAVE to do certain things. This is YOUR life!

FAQs to Self Love Exercises

Is Self-Care The Same As Self-Love?

Are you wondering, is self-care the same as self-love? No,they are not the same thing.

Self-care is about taking care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Self-love is about accepting yourself for who you are, being kind and compassionate towards yourself and your values and beliefs.

How Can I Practice Self-Love Mentally?

Wondering how to practice self-love mentally? You can do this by practicing the following self-love techniques frequently:

• Do some yoga
• Take a break and do nothing
• Go to bed
• Journaling
• Reading a book
• Go for a walk in nature

How Do I Start Finding Self-Love?

So, how do I start finding self-love? If you want to start loving yourself, you need to accept yourself for who you are and find beauty within yourself. Stop talking yourself down.

Focus on the positive and be kind and compassionate towards yourself, just how you would be with your loved ones.

How Does Self-Therapy Work?

How does self-therapy work? Self-therapy is a way to heal yourself without the help of a therapist.

By learning to love yourself and practicing self-love activities, you can treat yourself with therapeutic methods to deal with emotional and personal problems.

Self Love Exercises: Before You Go . . .

There were many different self love exercises included here, but don’t feel like you have to do them all every day. Part of self love is also being kind and patient with yourself.

So, a good way to approach this can be to build a little self love workshop (i.e. 30 days of self love) and try all the exercises at least once and then choose your favorite ones to do consistently.

Try making at least one to three of these self love activities a part of your daily routine to see the best results.

Self-Love Exercises Worksheet

Here, you can download my FREE self-love exercises printable.

Interested in creating a self love routine? Read on to get some help in taking action. You can also try out this 30-day self-care challenge if you want more.

For the busy days, check out these 5-minute self-care activities.

Self Love Exercises

About The Author Of Self Love Exercises

Saskia is a mom, blogger, and freelance writer. She loves sharing tips on self-care, personal growth, and productivity & organization. Find out moreabout her or get in touch with her here.