The Mindset Mentor - How to Be Kind to Yourself

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Are you way too hard on yourself? In this episode, I break down why self-love feels so hard—and why self-acceptance is actually the key to changing that. Most of us were raised to believe we weren��t enough, and that belief still runs our lives. But what if you could finally break free from it?  Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the mindset mentor podcast. I am your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another one of these episodes. And if you're out there and you want to brainwash yourself to become the person that you want to be, not who your parents or society or anybody else has told you to be, you can go ahead and download my free video lesson on how to create a morning priming technique to brainwash yourself. Just go to morningpriming.com.

Once again, morningpriming.com, and you can download it absolutely free. Today, I'm gonna be talking about how to be kinder to yourself, how to accept yourself more, how to be more loving to yourself. And one accept yourself more, how to be more loving to yourself. And one of the things that I hear from people a lot is that people, let me just be real,

people are really kinda mean to themselves. Like a lot of people are such assholes to themselves in their own head. They talk negatively to themselves, they talk down to themselves, they say things to themselves that they would never say to anybody else alive, especially someone that they love, and they probably won't even say to their worst enemy.

And then they come in and they say, well, how can I be kinder to myself? How can I love myself more? And I think instead of looking at it by saying, how can I love myself more? Because if you have this negative hatred self-talk to say, how can I love myself? It's kind of too much of a change. And so what I really think we should start thinking is instead of how can I love myself is kind of too much of a change. And so what I really think we should start thinking is instead of how do I love myself more is how can I accept myself more? I think that's a better phrase. It's not really about love. What it's about is about acceptance.

The things that you don't love about yourself in reality is just you not accepting certain aspects of yourself. And the barrier to self-love is self-acceptance. And so what I would prefer that we focus on is self-acceptance, to accept yourself fully, to see your flaws and to start accepting your flaws more. Because behind all of the self judgment is love and the doorway to get there is acceptance. I think that our natural state as a human is love.

And that would be for others, but also for ourselves. But we're raised in a society and we're raised with people who don't have psychology degrees and they don't know about how a child's brain works and all this type of stuff. We're kind of raised, and I'm going to talk about today, in a way that kind of takes us away from our own personal self-love. You know, I don't see a baby walking around with self-love issues. I don't see, when I look at my son, I don't see him struggling with self-love. He's pretty damn happy like 97% of the time. The only time he's not happy is when

he's hungry, when he's tired, or if he shit his pants. That's about it. Other than that, he's happy as hell. So I don't really see babies with self-love issues, which means that lack of self-love is somehow learned along the way. So then let's ask ourselves, if we're not talking about self-love, if we're talking about self-acceptance, and self-acceptance will get us to self-love, because self-love and just love in general is probably our natural state, why is it so hard to accept ourselves? Well, this is the thing that I always think about in my head is like, why are we so far off track from where we naturally are? And I think there's a lot of different things. The first thing is that we have all been socialized.

And when I say socialized, what I really prefer calling it is domesticated. So the same way you domesticate an animal, you kind of domesticate a child. And I don't mean that's the child's fault. What I mean is that's the parents fault. So the parents are under pressure. All of our parents are under pressure to socialize us

in some sort of way so that we fit in as a normal adult. And so we get socialized so that we fit in. A child does not fit in with normal social constructs. You get that? You ever seen a kid that just decides in the middle of a restaurant they want to scream? They're in a park. They just want to take their clothes off. That doesn't fit normal social constructs So when they do stuff like that, it's like no don't do that. And so parents Don't intentionally do this But here's something that I see Maybe they do intentionally some do but most don't one of the ways that parents will get their child

To do what they want is either number one, yelling at them, or number two, emotional rewarding or punishment based on how the child acts. And so I want you to think about your childhood. And also if you have children, I want you to think about how you raise your children as well. A lot of times, if you're good, the want you to think about how you raise your children as well A lot of times if you're good the parents are like you get my love They don't say that directly but that's kind of the the energy that we come at a child with right if you're good You get my love if you're bad. I remove my love from you. And

So a child is just this natural free-flowing wild crazy kid and they do something that doesn't fit in with society, and the parents will reprimand them. The average child is reprimanded eight times more than they're praised throughout their childhood, which means the average child thinks, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, my mom doesn't love me for doing this, whatever it might be,

eight times more than they think I'm accepted. So they don't think there's something wrong, like no child is three years old, four years old and thinking of himself. There's something wrong with society. What are they thinking? Okay, I did something. My mom's retracting her love.

This is all subconscious. They're not thinking of this logically. I did something. My dad, my mom is pulling their love away from me. There must be something wrong with me. And so we think, oh, I must be the problem. I have to fix myself. How I naturally am is not good. And so it becomes hard over time for us to accept ourselves. Now, there's no reasoning for the process. A child doesn't understand everything. A child realizes that the way that they naturally are is not acceptable. And you know,

with the average child being reprimanded eight times more than their praise, they're thinking, I'm not good enough the way that I am eight times more than thinking that I am enough. And so a child, and I really just want want this to kind of hit home so you understand why we have self-love issues, why we have self acceptance issues because we were almost taught not to accept ourselves as we truly were so that we would fit in and so that we would get our parents love. And so the child has to change itself and has to let go of certain aspects of itself based on what the parents tell them that they should do.

All the child cares about just so know, is does mom love me? Does my dad love me? And anything that I do that gets that taken away from me must mean that I'm doing something wrong, which means that I am wrong. You know, when I'm running around and I'm having fun and I'm screaming in public and my mom yells at me, therefore, that aspect of myself is wrong

and I am not accepted as I naturally am. If I'm not acting right, then I must be wrong. Right? This is starting to make sense to you. Hopefully, hopefully this is making sense to you. I just want to, I really dive into this and I've been studying child psychology for so long and I've been studying parents and the way that they act and I've been coaching people now for 19 years and I can see how

The parents reaction based off of the child when they're younger creates an adult that acts a certain way or holds back in a certain way Or doesn't accept themselves. So we learn from a very young age during this socialization process That we are not good enough as we are So we must act out of alignment with who we think we are. We have to act as a different person. We have to act a certain way so that we get our parents' love, even if that certain way is not me, which the result of that is my true self, who we come in this world as that still exists, looking at my conditioned self and having trouble accepting myself. Of course, our true self is going to have trouble accepting its conditioned self because our true

self is going, yeah, this person that I've become isn't me. This is like some caricature of me. This isn't me. This is who I've been told to be. And a lot of times we're not even aware of this. We're just like, I don't like myself. I don't accept myself. I don't love myself. And so this result is this feeling that people have so many people throughout the world have unworthiness because of the process of socialization throughout growing up. And I understand if you're a parent, this shit is hard. Kids are wild. You're just trying to keep them alive. You know, sometimes you do have to reprimand a child when they're wanting to jump off a 10-foot wall and you're just like, oh my god, I've got to keep you alive. But I want you to understand like you're creating your child's personality and their

identity every single moment of their day based off of what they see you do, what they see you talk about them, and what you say directly to them. And so it's something really important to think about as you're growing up with your children and as you're raising your children. But it's also really important for all of us to think about with ourselves, because your personality has been built most likely from childhood. It's been built on this repressing of who you truly are. Somehow I'm bad and I need to look to my parents to see if I am right. I need their validation. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And so as we get older, then we start seeking approval of other people. Do you love me? You know, if I get good grades, if I get to number one, if I beat everyone else, if I look sexy enough for you, if I get enough

likes on Instagram, if I get enough likes on Instagram, if I get enough likes on Facebook, if I make a lot more money, will you accept me? So we do all of these different things for acceptance from other people, because what we're looking for from the external world is what we're actually looking for for ourselves and from ourselves. So we're doing these things to get acceptance from other people, trying to get good grades, trying to get to number one, trying to beat everybody else, trying to look sexy enough, trying to make a whole lot of money, trying to get more likes on Instagram.

We're looking for acceptance from other people. Will you accept me if I do this? Ultimately, because who are we really looking for acceptance from? From ourselves. If you fully 100% accept yourself, you don't care if anybody else accepts you. And it's not like saying you go out and you're an asshole to everybody else. You just have this calm, cool confidence where you don't need other people to accept you. You don't need to be somebody else or act in a certain way or achieve a certain thing

for other people to like you because it doesn't really matter. You already accept yourself. And if other people don't accept you as you are, doesn't matter because I accept myself. And so what we do is a lot of us go out into the world and we're trying to do or become something so that we feel accepted because we really just want to accept ourselves. So the issue is that we can validate ourselves and what we really need to work on is that we need to be able to validate ourselves based off of who we are as a person and nothing else. Not our looks, based off of who we are as a person and nothing else. Not our looks, not our money, not our cars, not our jobs, not our bodies, not our accomplishments, not our social media followings.

Just I'm going to accept myself as I am. It's really interesting. And I've told this story quite a few times in the podcast, but I used to do this meditation and the is a guided meditation. And he used to always say, you have no pockets, you have no storehouse. And the way I translated that is, I was born in this world with no pockets. I'm gonna leave in this world with no pockets, which means that nothing that I have or own or achieve makes me more or less than who I already am.

And so what I need to do is accept myself as I truly am. Our baseline is not negative. Our baseline is zero We have been trained to think that there's something wrong with us not on purpose on accident But now it's and that's not our fault necessarily But it is our responsibility of what we need to deal with and so what we need to do is we need to just learn to appreciate ourselves as we currently are if you're short You can appreciate yourself as short if you're fat Appreciate yourself as fat if you're skinny if you have no money whatever learn to appreciate yourself as you currently are

Learn to appreciate your negative thoughts learn to appreciate your short temper Acceptance first no judging, you know if you go into Let's like Ram Dass always talks about this, if you go into a forest, you don't go and look at the trees and you judge the trees. You just look at all the trees and you just appreciate them, right? You don't go, oh my gosh, look at that little fat tree. Look at the little ugly little fat tree.

Now look at the little short tree, a little broken tree. We don't go in and judge trees, we just appreciate all of the trees as they are. But we judge ourselves and we judge other people all the time. And we do that out of our own insecurities. Right? We have lived a lot of our time and lots of people out there in a state of judging. We either judge ourselves. A lot of times we judge ourselves or we judge other people. And so what I think we should do instead of ask ourselves, how can we love ourselves? It's more of how can we accept ourselves? And now when I say acceptance, I don't mean that you just

resigned to the idea and you don't change yourself at all. I mean that you can still, and I've had so many people be like, Rob, but if I fully accept myself and there's not something wrong and I don't hate myself, aren't I going to be like not motivated to create my better life? And I'm like, no, you can still go out and wanna be a millionaire and change the world and create a massive world-changing business and have a thousand employees or be the best possible mother and all of it. You can want all of those things.

And you can always still want to improve because as a human, it is natural for us to always want to be growing and changing and evolving. That is one of the most natural core things that we have built inside of us. But as growing and changing and evolving. That is one of the most natural core things that we have built inside of us. But as you're changing and evolving, you can also just accept yourself a little bit more. You can go ahead and you can create,

you know, a multimillion dollar business if you want to, and hate yourself the entire time if you want to. It's not gonna be as fun. But you can create the exact same business and you can accept yourself and love yourself as you're doing it. And in fact, I would actually put money on the person who loves and accepts himself is probably going to build that business faster because they're not mentally holding themselves back and mentally self-sabotaging all the time.

And so you have to allow yourself to be a human being, all your flaws, everything. And just learn to accept yourself as you are. You don't have to achieve, you don't have to buy something, you don't have to make a certain amount of money, you don't have to put on makeup. Just accept yourself as you truly are. And one thing that I think that every single person should do this list in this podcast is try to rediscover yourself, your inner child, your true self as you truly are. What do you love to do?

Like what's fun? What's something that you just absolutely enjoy that you haven't done in a while? And maybe you've been so caught up in having to be an adult and having to provide and having to pay the bills that you haven't done something that you've loved in years. What is that thing? What if you just started to become more of that child again and have more fun and accept yourself? There's nothing that you need to do.

There's nothing that you need to prove to change to be loved and to be accepted. And so what I'm trying to get you to really understand is the most important aspect of being kind to yourself. The most important aspect of self-love is accepting yourself as you truly are. Understanding why we probably don't accept ourselves based off of childhood, based off of conditioning, based off of all of those things. And so think about this like when you think about

your childhood, do you remember any memories from your childhood where you felt like maybe your parents retracted love in some sort of way because of something that you did. Maybe they like a lot of times I hear parents or a lot of times I hear children say well yeah like I only got my father's love when I got an A or only got my father's love when we won a basketball game. Okay well that's an example of love not being given so fully retracted until you achieve. So people would go well I, I need to achieve, achieve, achieve. Or do you remember if I acted a certain way, my mom would disconnect from me.

She wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day. And so I want you to kind of think about those things that have happened to you in your past. Journal through them. Another thing that's really good to journal through is like, what aspects of myself have I been struggling to accept? Start writing them down.

What aspects of myself have I been struggling to accept? And then what can. What aspects of myself have I been struggling to accept? And then what can I do to accept myself more for who I truly am? Like what can I do to wake up and just start from a place of self-acceptance? Yeah, you know, I do kind of have a short temper sometimes. Okay, I can accept that. And as I accept that, I can start to change it as well.

And then ask yourself the question, what does my inner child want me to rediscover? How will I commit myself to taking the first step towards rediscovering who I truly am? And that's really what I want you to think about is what would it look like for me to just rediscover my inner child, for me to rediscover who I truly am. And then just go on this journey of just self-acceptance. The more you accept yourself, the more that you're naturally gonna find that, number one, your energy throughout the day is better, life's a little bit easier, and at the same time,

self-love just kind of feels more natural. That's all I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories, tag me in it, RobDowjr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And once again, if you want to download my morning priming video lesson, go ahead and go to morningpriming.com once again, morningpriming.com.

And with that, I'm gonna leave it the same way I leave you every single episode, making sure your mission makes somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.