Book review: ‘Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It’ by Kamal Ravikant

By Charlotte Brown

As an avid reader myself, I’m always up for a good old self improvement book in the vein of classics like ‘You Can Heal Your Life’, or ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, both of which I followed the advice of for maybe two weeks tops. However, one book recommended to me over lockdown this year has stood out as something that has genuinely changed my mindset.

‘Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It’ by Kamal Ravikant is a quick read but one that packs a big punch. In essence, it tells the story of Ravikant’s climb back to a healthy state of mind after losing his girlfriend and his job in Silicon Valley. It’s an exact guidebook of what he did to attain the sort of healthy, loving mindset most of us mere mortals can only dream of, and actually, it doesn’t take as much as you think.

To drastically oversimplify his guidance, Ravikant lays out four steps to loving yourself: forgive yourself, properly, for any baggage you might be holding onto; make a vow that you are going to love yourself no matter what; use a mental loop of the words ‘I love myself’ frequently (at the start and end of the day, in meditation, in a mirror etc.); and ask yourself the question, “If I loved myself, what would I do?” when in doubt. It’s a simple process but one that takes dedication to see the results of.

I decided to try this out, because what else was I really going to do when I can’t leave the house? But here’s the thing - it actually worked. It’s easy to feel a little silly at first doing this stuff, but slowly I noticed my mental chatter turn from harsh, usually demeaning things about myself, to something a lot more forgiving and loving. Being able to override the automatic negative thoughts and replace them with new, positive ones did me a lot more good than I would have initially thought. Ravikant says thoughts are like water going over rocks repeatedly - as you think them over and over again, they carve a path in your mind that’s hard to get out of. By replacing those thoughts with loving ones, you carve new paths that eventually become your new default way of thinking.

This book for me reminded me of what it was like to look after myself. Properly look after myself. Last year at university I remember having panic attacks over workload, pushing myself to exhaustion then doing it again, eating awfully, and overall just not prioritising myself at all. Studying and my career was the most important thing to me, and my actual self fell by the wayside. Doing the book’s simple exercises helped me realise that I was abusing myself and my body. I started with the little things he suggested, repeating the mantra, and slowly brought in other acts of self care. I definitely still slip up from time to time, I’m human - but now I set boundaries, almost like a parent would. I don’t let myself work after dinner. I try and do my skincare routine and brush my teeth every morning and night. I have at least a couple of good, healthy meals a week. I have a bedtime routine and I get enough sleep. From the outside looking in it probably sounds obvious to do these things, but to me these little steps towards treating myself lovingly were a revelation. I’m happier now that I’ve stopped pushing myself to always do better, always improve and work longer and harder, at the expense of my health and emotions.

I still have bad days. This definitely didn’t fix everything. I still find myself working way too late, or feeling anxious and panicked. However, when I feel like that now I have a starting point to bring myself back to. Having this routine of ‘I love myself’ feels like a solid anchor that I can rely on to guide me back towards feeling alright again, even if it takes a while.

I’d really recommend this book to anyone who wants to start, well, loving themselves. Self care can be a daunting task, or one that you throw yourself into then forget about after a couple of days. Following his small guidelines is a great start to forming a habit of properly caring for your mental health. It may not work for everyone, but I’d suggest trying it out for at least a week or two and then seeing what happens. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it definitely can’t hurt.