Ashley Graham’s Top Tip For Learning To Love Yourself

If you ever feel insecure, lacking in confidence or down on yourself about your appearance, career, or relationship — know that you're not alone. We all experience these unkind thoughts — even established, globally-loved models like Ashley Graham.

As a successful model and television presenter known for her work around plus-size representation and body positivity, Ashley is a role model to many. In a recent YouTube video, she spills her self-love secrets.

“The idea of confidence can’t come from one singular thing,” Ashley tells her 295k subscribers. “Confidence is something that oozes into the cracks of every single thing we do.”

She says that it’s not just body confidence that many of us are hung up on, but that our mindset can affect different areas of our lives.

“You’re in this adult body that feels left out, less than, not worthy — it’s gonna trickle into your relationships, your work, how you treat yourself, and that’s not ok. You have to make it a daily practice to get your mind out of that,” Ashley shares.

The key to this is obvious to Ashley.

“Definitely affirmations. You have to reprogram yourself into understanding who you are today. Repetition in a conscious effort is so beneficial. There’s nothing that’s gonna be handed to you, this is something that you’re gonna have to choose as a daily practice.”

Affirmations are statements spoken aloud or written down that confirm, support, or guide you in a positive manner. For Ashley, some of her affirmations include saying, “I am bold, I am brilliant, I am beautiful.”

But like anyone else, there are many lessons that Ashley is still learning. If affirmations are new to you and feel awkward, she understands. “It feels like BS sometimes. It feels like you can’t really wrap your head around loving yourself some days, I get it,” she says.

She acknowledges that we all have bad days — what she calls ‘funk days’. “[Funk days will] come and they will always come but it’s a matter of how do you handle your day-off days. How are you going to get out of your funk day and choose you over this day?” 

Instead of sprinkling positivity over the funk, Ashley allows herself to feel whatever it is she’s feeling. But how she handles it is by giving herself parameters, even if that’s allowing herself to watch six hours of TV.

“I never did affirmations on my funk days because I knew that it wasn’t gonna get me out of my funk, I was just going to probably fall into it a little bit further and I was gonna be mad at myself for lying to myself because that day, affirmations weren’t going to get me out. But I chose the next day to start them up again,” she says.

“I hope that you know self-care isn’t about making a bath and just putting in a bath bomb and going to the spa. Yes, those things can work but fixing your funk day and getting out of the spiral is really about doing something that makes you feel good, and having that little moment of the day for you. This is crucial [to] maturing out of [funks] and actually getting to know you.”

She concludes by telling us about the importance of words, and the power they have over us.

“Taking control of the words that come out of my mouth [has] truly manifested in such a big way that I’m such a believer in watching your tongue and making sure what you say is only going to bring you life.”