The First Class Mindset Part I: Love

The right mindset is the essential ingredient of living first class. Without it, all other attempts to achieve it will leave you lacking. And here’s the big surprise: not all the people you see “living the good life” have it.

You see, plenty of people have made lots of money and can buy things considered to be first class. But many of them suffer from complexes. There’s the jerk who thinks that because he has more money he can treat others poorly. There’s the insecure one who believes deep down she doesn’t deserve it, and therefore wastes her resources on undeserving items and ungrateful people. The Grinch has all the money in the world yet scrimps by via short-changing themselves and others and having a lot of junk (another sign of insecurity) out of fear of lack instead of fewer, more quality items.

All of these unfortunate souls are lacking the first class mindset, and their lives will never be complete – and truly first class – until they make peace with their ego, their insecurities and their fears. The lack of solid foundation will rock their boat, and not in a good way!

You want a foundation that will stand up to anything – success or failure, good days or bad days, adding pounds or shedding pounds – and find you the same, whole individual at the end of each day.

First class starts from within and then permeates the without. Once you develop the first class mindset, every day can be the greatest day. So let’s get into it!

The first rule of the first class mind set is to love yourself. I’m not talking about conceit, I’m talking about respecting and valuing yourself. Do you treat yourself the way you treat people that you love? Do the people you love deserve the best you can possibly give them?

If you’re not treating yourself that way, you need to ask yourself why.

Having a healthy love and respect for yourself is absolutely crucial to the first class mindset. After all, if you don’t love someone why would you bother? It’s the same thing here.

Many of us are raised to believe that loving yourself is a narcissistic or prideful. It’s selfish, it’s arrogant, it’s demeaning to others, etc. This is why it is hard for some people to admit they love themselves, if they even really do. Most people who do not love themselves do not because they believe it’s wrong, and treat themselves accordingly. Is it any wonder how much illness we have in a country where people are pretty much taught to devalue themselves and that all others are above them? Your body feels that negative energy and responds in kind.

You cannot live first class while harboring hate or and negativity about yourself. Release it. Trade it in. Give yourself a rose and fall in love with your own beautiful heart.

Letting go of these self-depreciating thoughts can be difficult, especially if you’ve been saying them to yourself for thirty, forty, fifty years or more. Replace all negative thinking with positive thinking and repeat it to yourself every day. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t believe it as first, because guess what? If you tell yourself, “I love myself, and I am worth more than (insert bad habit or situation). I’ll make good choices today to honor this.” You will eventually change your behaviors to match your self-talk.

Just this one single thing – simple, yet so challenging – may be the only thing you need to starting drawing the first class lifestyle to yourself automatically, without you even having to do anything else. Because here’s the secret: people love people who love themselves. Self-haters have fewer friends, lower incomes and fewer job opportunities because no one wants to be around that. But experiencing true love for yourself automatically extends itself as appreciation for others, and that’s something everyone wants in their life.

Give yourself permission to love yourself and watch your life transform.