Lizzo's Hot Tips Are Hyping Us Up For An Unforgettable Self-Love Summer
If ever there was a role model for self-love and confidence, it's Lizzo. Without a doubt, she's a powerhouse who somehow manages to balance life as one of the top musical artists alongside her role as a business mogul. She's someone who works hard while always appearing to have a great time doing it, frequently uploading lighthearted and comedic posts on her social media while also being open and honest about the range of emotions that come with being a human being.
She jokes about being in love with Chris Evans, posts tributes to her friends and colleagues, and never misses an opportunity to give credit where it's due — like befriending and honoring the dancer, Jaeden Gomez, who created the signature dance trend for her hit song "It's About D*** Time," last summer. Lizzo invited Gomez to join her in performing the song and dance on several occasions, effectively making Lizzo the queen of supporting others.
Lizzo is a true icon who has confidence in herself and lifts up those around her. As summer nears, Lizzo is spearheading the trend of loving yourself in ways that are authentic, healthy, and sustainable. You may already be well aware of #HotGirlSummer, but summer 2023 is all about Lizzo's philosophy of vibrant, overflowing self-love. Here are the hot tips she's giving to hype us all up for this year's summer of (self) love!
Speak positively to yourself
You've likely heard that if you wouldn't say something to your best friend, then you shouldn't say it to yourself. Eradicating negative self-talk is often easier said than done, but Lizzo is here to show us the way. Lizzo is unafraid to speak up on her own behalf when detractors write cruel messages about her on social media, and she regularly posts raving self-love messages about herself – an extremely healthy habit.
Cleveland Clinic reports that engaging in negative self-talk can increase anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. To counteract these effects, or to simply stop negative self-talk in its tracks, try to identify the emotion you're feeling when you notice that you're speaking negatively to yourself. When you identify negative self-talk as being merely a thought, then you can separate the negativity from your overall identity.
Cultivating positive self-talk at Lizzo's level likely won't be an overnight achievement, but little by little you can make progress when it comes to the conversations you have with yourself and the sentiments you tell yourself to be true, along with those you confirm are falsehoods driven by negative self-talk. Over the summer, keep a journal to track your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and what may be going on in your life on any particular day. You can include the writing of self-affirmations in your journal as well. At the conclusion of the summer, look back to see how much progress you've made in how you befriend and speak to yourself.
Be open, honest, and transparent
Lizzo is the definition of the friend who hypes you up, and now she's encouraging all of her fans to do the same for themselves and others. Part of genuinely hyping someone up includes being open and honest with them, and this applies to your relationship with yourself and your cultivation of authentic self-love.
Lizzo has taken part in several self-esteem campaigns, including Dove's Self-Esteem Project and the What's Underneath Project (via People). In describing her experiences with embracing her body, Lizzo stated how there was a time when she wasn't as confident in her own skin. She's also transparent about how negative body talk affects individuals and society at large.
She's been vocal about how body negativity has become the accepted norm within modern culture, instead of the norm being body acceptance. "We have to start being more honest with what we need, what we deserve, and start serving that to ourselves," Lizzo wrote in a 2019 op-ed for NBCNews, also revealing that she works to accept herself every single day. Not feeling perfectly confident all the time is something that everyone should be honest about instead of shamed into hiding. If you're having an off day or feeling insecure about your body, it's okay and it's even more okay to say it aloud. Per the gospel of Lizzo, don't let shame hold you back or push you down. Keep trying your best!
Love who you are and thank your body
On Instagram, Lizzo posted a photo of herself in vibrant makeup with the caption, "Baby.... LET ME TELL U HOW FINE I LOOKED LAST NIGHT," which is the epitome of her overflowing and contagious confidence, self-love, and appreciation for herself. Lizzo is someone who openly appreciates her body and all of the wonderful things it does for her — like allowing her to absolutely slay every time she performs on stage.
As a musician, she's known for her talent in playing the flute, but what may not be as apparent is the lung strength it takes for her to play as fiercely as she does during her performances. Lizzo is clearly proud of her musical ability — as she should be! Her beloved instrument, which The New York Times reports to be named "Sasha Flute" as an homage to her idol, Beyonce, has become a staple at her shows and a symbol of her self-love for herself. Lizzo has been outspoken about her gratitude for her body and all that it allows her to do, including her incredible on-stage dancing. She's a self-described "band geek" and leans into the term instead of shying away from it, just as she embraces all of her attributes, qualities, and talents.
According to The Every Girl, you too can lean into your amazing attributes, as Lizzo does, by learning how to tune out societal messages of imperfection and replacing them with messages of self-respect and self-acceptance.
Surround yourself with uplifting representation
Lizzo has stated her self-love and journey of body acceptance isn't a political statement, but merely her love of her own body. What makes Lizzo even more extraordinary is that she's realistic about how society perpetuates harmful narratives around bodies, and she certainly isn't afraid to call out the dangerous dynamics. Instead of chasing a body ideal dictated by society and fueled by money, Lizzo suggests a much easier route to take by curating your own lens of representation. Follow people who look like you and surround yourself with content including representation that makes you feel good about yourself.
People reported that for Dove's Self-Esteem Project, Lizzo explained her journey in finding representation by saying, "I was following people before who I thought were beautiful and they were society's beauty standard. Looking at them made me have this desire to edit or to change or think that I wasn't worthy. I don't want one person's beauty to diminish the other." She went further in explaining how she found the representation that made her feel fulfilled, "One day I stumbled upon Gabi Fresh. She had the first bikinis for fat girls I was so excited. I was like, 'She looks like me, right?' I hit that follow button so hard. That led me to this beautiful world of women who looked like me." If the content you follow on social media doesn't make you feel your best, unfollow. Find the representation that makes you feel inspired.
Choose your own beauty standards
The first thing you need to do according to the book of Lizzo is to toss out everything you know about beauty standards and begin with a fresh slate that is yours to write. This is how you re-write the beauty standards you allow into your life, perhaps taking a page out of Lizzo's book to surround yourself with the representation that best reflects you and makes you feel your best. In a recent TikTok video posted to her account, Lizzo pointed out how women such as Jennifer Lopez were considered "thick" during the height of the overly skinny supermodel era, which dominated most of the 1990s and early 2000s.
By calling out the absurdity of traditional body standards, particularly for those who are femme-identifying, Lizzo is setting the tone for this upcoming summer of radical self-love. Think about her approach as the self-love version of power PDA, the relationship trend dominating celebrity culture and seemingly spearheaded by Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, aka Kravis. Essentially, Kravis is to power PDA as Lizzo is to power self-love.
Lizzo has long been an advocate of disrupting societal norms around beauty and body appearance while being honest about how she struggles with her body image at times. If you take nothing else away from Lizzo's profound advice, know that your beauty standards are yours and yours alone. No one else should determine what you think about yourself, and that's exactly why self-love is defining summer 2023.
Exercise for health and wellness
One unhealthy myth about exercise that Lizzo advocates for tossing out ASAP is exercising for appearance. When it comes to exercise, a frequently used phrase that serves as a reminder of healthy exercising versus unhealthy exercising is, "Exercise for sanity, not vanity." Lizzo is a perfect example of someone who exercises because it strengthens her body, keeps her health going strong, and she advocates for finding workout routines you enjoy. Brown Girl Magazine shared the advice from personal trainer and wellness coach, Lavina Mehta, that working out and exercising shouldn't be conducted for superficial reasons, but rather as a way to invest in our own bodies, health, and well-being. Akin to Lizzo's philosophy, you should focus your summer workouts on routines that make you feel good about yourself and increase your self-love.
Through her social media content, Lizzo has expressed her commitment to working out on a daily basis for the past several years because she strives to nourish and love her body, which includes her mental well-being. A 2006 study published in The Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry focused on the mental health outcomes of exercising, finding that regular exercise can decrease symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress while boosting mood and outlook. Going for a walk or engaging in a cardio workout when feeling insecure, anxious, or stressed can counteract the effects of the negative experience and result in increased self-esteem alongside the other positive mental wellness effects.
Wear what you want
The summer months are colloquially called "swimsuit season" with the insinuation that to wear a swimsuit, one must work on getting a muscular or thin body. If it hasn't become obvious by now from the iconic role modeling of Lizzo, every body is a "swimsuit body" and every single person's body is "swimsuit ready". In tossing out traditional beauty standards, creating your own lens of representation and body appreciation, including both your external body appearance and all of the remarkable things your body does for you every day, and practicing positive self-talk through daily affirmations or journaling, Lizzo is delivering the equation for powerful self-love that we've all been waiting for as summer 2023 begins.
It's an indisputable fact that Lizzo has never shied away from wearing whatever she wants, whenever she wants. During an appearance on "The Late Late Show" with James Corden during "Carpool Karaoke", Lizzo revealed that her family members told her to dress more conservatively when they saw a photograph of her boarding a plane while confidently wearing pants that showed her glutes. In response, the queen of power self-love laughed and owned her ability to wear what she wants to wear. She is also not one to shy away from an elaborate costume, going all out for a Baby Yoda Halloween costume which saw her completely covered in green makeup, per Entertainment Weekly. From bikinis to the robes of Grogu, Lizzo wears what she wants and you should, too.