The power of laughing at yourself

Want to learn to love yourself? Want more self confidence and less anxiety?

You need to learn to laugh at yourself.

Seriously. There is so much power in an LOL that's directed at yourself.

Before you cast this aside as cliche self help advice, hear me out.

Laughing at yourself is more than just cracking jokes. This isn't some "make me a bicycle, clown" kinda of vibe. It’s more than being goofy, having silly dance moves or being an over-the-top carefree person.

Laughing at yourself means taking the pressure away that you've put on yourself. It means laughing at how serious you take your stumbles, how absurd your expectations are for yourself, how unrealistic your desire to be perfect is, how random life can be and just how unlucky you can be sometimes.

Learning to laugh at yourself is legit a superpower.

I want you to train yourself to make LOL your gut reaction instead of self doubt.

Make that your reaction for the simple reason that you're simply too hard on yourself. Your expectations of yourself are unfair. Your knee jerk reaction to criticize yourself is unfair.

So I say laugh at yourself! As often as you can.

- Before you jump to a conclusion of how much of a loser you are for losing a deal, laugh.

- Before you assume you’ll never be some rico suave kinda character, laugh.

- Before you scold yourself for not saying the right thing or doing the right thing, laugh.

- Before you beat yourself up for forgetting something important, laugh.

Laugh at how inconsistent you can be sometimes.

- Laugh at how you can end up doing exactly what you said you didn’t want to do.

- Laugh at how you totally flubbed what you wanted to say.

- Laugh at how ridiculous your expectations of yourself are.

- Laugh at how much you have to learn.

Before you doubt yourself… laugh first. If you’re struggling right now with self confidence, if you're struggling with doubting yourself, with your dating life, etc... just try this.

Try to train yourself that the next time you feel tempted to scold yourself when you mess up in a meeting… just say LOL.

The next time you feel like you have no game on that dating app… just say LOL.

The next time you feel that you’re boring and have no chart topping talent … just say LOL.

The next time you feel like failure because you don’t have 7 figures in the bank… just say LOL.

Say LOL... not because you'll never get those things, but rather because you’re being too hard on yourself right now. Laugh at yourself because you’re being an a**hole to yourself right now.

Laugh at yourself because you’re being unrealistic right now.

Laugh because you’re not perfect and there’s no need to expect yourself to be right now.

You know you’re working on growing. You know you’re working hard. You're putting in the hours. You’re pushing yourself. You’ll get there. But in the meantime, back off! When you feel yourself gearing up to doubt yourself… replace it with knee jerk laughter.

Just try it! I don’t think I’m crazy.

I’ve been doing this for a long time.

I’ve laughed at myself in the midst of having an absolute meltdown.

I’ve laughed at myself after losing the biggest deal of my career.

I’ve laughed at myself after having the 100th issue with my upcoming book. I've laughed at myself after recording an entire podcast episode only to realize the mic wasn’t recording.

I’ve laughed after spilling coffee on my white shirt 5 minutes before a big meeting.

Laughing at yourself trains you to love yourself before you doubt yourself.

Laugh because you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. Laugh because you’re too hard only yourself. Laugh because you’re human. Laugh because it heals you. Laugh because it makes you realize that you’re really not lost.