One of the most important things to learn on your self-development and self-love journey, is to learn how to fill up your own cup. You must learn how to feel happy, fulfilled, valuable, deserving, confident etc by yourself. This will enable you to be truly happy with yourself and develop happy and lasting relationships with others.
You can’t always rely on other people to make you feel worthy, happy or loved because what if they leave? Ultimately, you need to feel these things for yourself and work on the relationship you have with yourself every day. You are your only constant in life and you need to make yourself feel all the positive emotions you desire. You can do this by doing things that help you to learn, grow, have fun and inspire you. Focus your time and energy on the things that lift you up, or that help you to develop, unwind or motivate you to reach your goals.
Learn to love yourself fully and be happy on your own and in your own company. This will not only improve the relationship you have with yourself, but it will strengthen all of your relationships in your life.
Therefore, it’s important that you don’t become dependent on other people for your happiness. The only guaranteed constant in your life is yourself, you need to provide yourself with happiness and fulfillment. Stop looking for external validation or distractions from how you’re truly feeling. Check out my post 12 Steps to Become Who You’ve Always Wanted to Be to reach your full potential!
Fill Up Your Own Cup Instead of Others
When you’re in a relationship, it’s easy to get wrapped up in your happy relationship bubble and you just want to spend all your time with your partner and making them happy. It can cause you to neglect other areas of your life, without intending to. Often, you can forget about yourself and what you need and truly want.
Take just one day or evening away from your partner and focus your energy on improving the relationship you have with yourself. This will help to strengthen your relationship with them and give you both time to yourselves to focus on doing what you truly enjoy.
You can start to lose parts of yourself if your partner isn’t into the same things as you. Over time you will start to miss these things and maybe hold some resentment towards your partner deep down.
We become so invested in other people and pleasing them or working so much that we forget to take time to do what we love and make ourselves happy. You need to take time for yourself to avoid a burnout. When you become too dependent on someone else, you forget who you are and what’s important to you.
Set aside some time daily, weekly or monthly to focus on yourself and your needs, it’s not selfish, it’s necessary and will make your life better as a whole. Ultimately, you need time to yourself to fill up your own cup and prioritise your own needs.
How to Fill Up Your Own Cup
If you’re by yourself and are feeling lonely, worthless, depressed or not good enough, it’s time for you to fill up your own cup. Instead of searching for someone else to come along and provide you with validation. You can’t expect anyone to know how to love you if you don’t love yourself or know what you need, deserve and expect from others.
Therefore, you need to stop waiting for other people to do things with you. If you want to do something or go somewhere, go on your own. Spend time with yourself and your thoughts, do things that light you up and make you feel happy. The only person you’ll ever truly need is yourself, so, start investing some time into getting to know yourself and building your confidence and self-esteem on your own.
Do that hobby you’ve always wanted to try or sign up for that class. You will open yourself up to new opportunities and possibilities when you get out of your comfort zone. Moreover, it’s important to put yourself first and try new things. You have to live with yourself the rest of your life. Therefore, you need to develop a deep love and respect for yourself in order to live a fulfilled and happy life.
Think about the things that you value and need from the people in your life. It could be things like they need to make you feel loved, happy, valued and excited. Similarly, you might need people to be spontaneous, thoughtful, encouraging and motivating. You may desire support, positive influence, help to have fun or feel gratitude for the little things in life.
Next…
Start thinking of ways that you can start providing those feelings to yourself. For example, if you love that someone brings a positive energy into your life, you could take some time to work on your own mindset. Read self-development books, listen to uplifting podcasts or challenge yourself to not say anything negative for a day.
Similarly, you could practice reiki healing, meditation, watch a funny film or start distancing yourself from negative people around you. Furthermore, you could go to a seminar, think of ways you can bring positivity into your day or give someone a compliment etc. There are countless ways that you can fill up your own cup without the need of others.
Journaling Prompts for Filling up Your Own Cup
There are numerous ways to improve your mindset and work on the relationship you have with yourself. There is nothing you can’t provide for yourself that other people can give you. Here are a few journaling prompts you can use to help you to start to fill up your own cup.
Ask yourself…
- What do I wish I had more time for?
- How can I free up some time to spend on myself?
- What did I used to love doing as a kid that I wish I still did?
- Why do I avoid spending quality time on my own?
- What makes me feel happy and excited?
- What have I always wanted to try but never got around to?
- Would I be able to be happy on my own if I lost my partner/close friends/family?
- Do I use external things to distract me from deeper problems? How could I start improving these things instead?
- What qualities do I need from others and how can I start providing them for myself?
- What areas of my life do I feel lacking in and what can I do today to start improving them?
Summary
It’s time to fill up your own cup in life and stop expecting other people to provide you with the feelings of being good enough. The people in your life don’t dictate your worth and it’s important for you to love and respect yourself.
In order to fill up your own cup you need to spend time working on your mindset and goals. Ask yourself what you can do for yourself that is going to make you feel more alive, confident, self-assured, happy, fulfilled, worthy etc.
It could be daily meditation, going for long walks in nature, listening to positive podcasts, working on a business idea, journaling or writing a novel. Similarly, it could be going to classes, going back into education, signing up for a self-help course, reading self-development books or starting a new career. You could also remove toxic people from your life, stay in by yourself and set boundaries to fill up your own cup and provide yourself with what you need.
Remember
We only get to live once and we need to start investing in ourselves and creating our own happiness. Stop putting things off and start putting yourself first for once. You can’t rely on other people to bring you happiness because they can easily take it away one day and what will you be left with?
We never know what’s around the corner for us but you will always have yourself and you need to build on your relationship with yourself, fill up your own cup and make yourself truly happy and content with who you are.
“Always fill your own cup first and allow the world to benefit from the overflow.”– Unknown
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