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2020 is coming to an end and I am thankful and blessed to still be alive and well. It has been a very challenging year and I'm glad I'm pulling through. For this project, I am focusing on three main topics: The Self, Love, and Relationships. All of these topics relates to what I had to overcome throughout this year and I wish to grow and learn from all the hardships I faced. My goal is to be able to find self-love and to grow mentally so that I could face the hardships in life and survive a little longer to achieve all that I ever dreamed of. I want to work on my relationship with family, friends, and lover. I also want to be the best version of myself and keep striving for great things 💚

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I strongly believe that loving yourself first is very important. Learning to love every inch of your body and taking care of your physical and mental health should be prioritized. Taking care of your overall well-being and putting yourself first is not being selfish. My goal is to focus on myself and to love myself because it's an important step to take in order to love others. I have dealt with many things throughout my 27 years of life and I must say, it's been challenging. The three topics of self, love, and relationships all correlates and have a strong connection with everything that has happened in my life. That is why my true goal is working on myself mentally and physically.

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✨ Self - Concept ✨
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I learned that self-concept is composed of a number of beliefs about what one is like and how it can govern both my present and future behavior. With this knowledge I would have to align my behavior with my ideal self to avoid producing negative emotions which can lower my self-esteem. The self-concept is shaped by several factors such as observing your own behavior and comparing it to others. I should avoid comparing myself to other people whom I think and feel are better than I am. Everyone is different in their own ways and realizing that will be beneficial to my mental health and getting closer to having a positive attitude towards life itself.

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✨ Self-Esteem ✨
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Self-esteem is a person's global evaluation of his or her worth, in other words, how much you appreciate and like yourself. People with low self-esteem are less happy, more likely to be depressed, more likely to give up after failure, and less trusting of others. This has always been my problem because I have a low self-esteem and it's a step I want to take and fix because I am tired of feeling low all the time. Past experiences with significant others and what I've been through took a toll on my mental health which in turn lowered my self-esteem. I have to get rid of the mentality that I can't do or face these challenges. I have to tell myself everyday that I CAN and I WILL.

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✨ Self-Regulation ✨
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I need to move onto self-regulation and setting goals and directing my behavior towards reaching those goals. I also learned that the key aspect of self-regulation is self-efficacy which is a person's belief that he or she can achieve specific goals. Self-efficacy plays a key role in adjustment and can be learned through mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, persuasion, and positive interpretations of emotional arousal. Sometimes I knowingly do things I know are bad for me and I engage in self-destruction afterwards which is obviously not good. So my aim is to focus on regulating my behavior and stress levels to align with my goals and how to achieve them.

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Self-Perception

In psychology, I learned that people tend to explain the causes of their behaviors to internal or external factors which is what psychologists call self-attribution. Reflecting on what happened to my past relationships, I always blamed the other person because I couldn't admit that I played a part in tarnishing the relationship. I blamed everything on external factors and turned a blind eye to my own role in what happened. It is a challenge to maintain a healthy relationship because of previous problems with past partners.

How you perceive yourself is not how others perceive you. And this is something that is challenging as well. I care too much about what others think and therefore base my ideas and ways of coping with past traumas to control my way of thinking. This also lowers my self-esteem and confuse my self-perception.

These feelings that I've bottled up for so long plays a role in my mental processing and creates self doubt in my life. I always doubt and beat myself up for things that I couldn't control and it's a setback on my will to move forward to better things. There were many times when I had to pick myself up because I had too much hope and faith in other things and people and less faith in my own self. It's very challenging and self damaging.

Learning to love myself and the body that I am in is also a challenge. Sometimes I sit and think to myself, am I enough? Am I pretty? Or do I have what it takes to be fully independent and be able to make my parents proud? All these questions live in my head and it plays with my mental health. Sometimes I just don't feel like I have what it takes to become successful. Sometimes I come across obstacles that slows down my progress. Sometimes my mind controls what my heart desires to accomplish because of all the self doubt residing in my head.

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Building Self-Esteem

- Recognizing that you control your own self-image
- Learning more about yourself
- Don't allow others to set your goals
- Recognize goals that are unrealistic
- Modify negative self-talk
- Emphasizing and understanding your strengths
- Cultivate new strength
- Approach life and others with a POSITIVE OUTLOOK

In order to start progressing, I have to reflect on the few ways to improve and build my self-esteem. I learned a lot of things in life by going through tough patches and I only hope to believe in myself and boost my self-esteem so I can reach my goals. I should focus on my self-concept, self-esteem, self-regulation, and self-perception in order to be completely content with myself and be able to work on my goals in life. Like a plant that needs water and sunlight to survive, I will keep watering myself with positive things and shine bright like the sun because I know I can do anything through consistency and the will power to grow.

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What I am looking forward to now at this point is focusing on bettering myself mentally and physically. In order to do that I have to start within myself. I have to take better care of my mental health because I feel like the will to be successful starts from inside the self. I have to believe in myself and I have to stop blaming external forces for the bad things that happens in my life that slows down my progress. I have a long journey but it's a journey worth taking! The self, love, and relationships will take me to my destination and I can't wait to see what's waiting for me at the end of the road.