Self love is not being selfish or conceited. It's about making sure you are a priority each and everyday. If showing yourself love has fallen to the bottom of your to-do list, it's time to make a change and make it a habit by using my Self Love Tracker.
The relationship you have with yourself, is the most important one you will experience. It’s the only relationship guaranteed to last a life time. So, what you do to nurture that relationship is hugely based on the ways you show yourself love.
With the demands of modern day life, it’s so easy to neglect the most important person in your life – YOU! And for some reason, as women there seems to be an unspoken pressure to ensure we take care of everyone else above and beyond ourselves.
We get so caught up on the idea of to grow external relationships with our kids, partners, family members or even co-workers. Our expectations of how these relationships should look and feel are very high. But lets be honest. When was the last time you bought yourself a bunch of flowers? Took a long bubble bath just to relax? Did something solely for your own enjoyment?
Do we love ourselves in the way we want other people to love us?
(Scroll down to grab your tracker now!)
Years ago, I used to feel frustration towards my husband. Frustrated because I believed he was not consistently being the person I expected him to be. I had such grand ideas of how he should be showing me love. But in reality, unless he witnessed ways in which I love and honoured myself, how would he even know what I needed.
The problem was not my husband. The problem was I wasn’t showing myself love – therefore I could not expect someone else to know how to love me. When I realised I could not make anyone else happy unless I was happy, my relationships with those around me changed. Consciously and unapologetically making myself a priority and starting a habit of self-love, changed everything.
STARTING A SELF LOVE HABIT
Building a consistent habit of Self-Love gave me a new freedom of prioritising my time, energy and what I focused on. In return, all my relationships changed for the better. I shed my resentment and guilt for acceptance, joy and love!
There were no grand gestures or making an announcement to my household that things were going to change. It started with taking small actions everyday. The way I spoke to myself. How I spent my time. Raising my standards and creating boundaries for what I accepted from myself and others.
Of course there was some opposition from the people who were closest to me. And I did have feelings of guilt when I started using my voice and saying no to things I did not want to do. But little by little, everyone adjusted and I got more comfortable doing more of what pleased and fulfilled me as an individual. Not someone’s wife, mother, daughter or co-worker.
WAYS TO SHOW SELF LOVE
If you were dating yourself, what score would you give yourself? No, really! Think about all the things you would want in a partner and ask yourself if you are living up to those expectations in the way you show yourself love. I bet you’re ready to kick yourself to the curb for not being a supportive, loving and compassionate partner.
So how do we change all of that? For me it was a mixture of many factors. But self-love looks different to everybody and depends on our own personal experience of what love means and how it’s displayed.
One thing I know for sure, doesn’t need to be a grand gesture or something expensive. It could be the glimpse in the mirror and saying a kind word about what you see reflected back. Taking an hour for yourself with no distractions and not feeling guilty. Taking a nap during the day. Getting a massage. Buying yourself something nice – because you deserve it. Or even admitting that you need help from someone else.
SELF-LOVE TRACKER DOWNLOAD
The main thing about self-love, is developing the habit of integrating actions on a daily basis to set a standard of how you treat yourself. This then transform to levels of expectations from what your will accept from others and teaching them what you need.
What better way to get new actions to become habits? By tracking them!
I have created a free Self-Love Tracker for you to download right now! Grab it today and start taking the actions to make loving yourself a priority. The tracker will give you a few ideas of what you can do, but you can always add your own personal actions for self-love fulfilment.
Each time you take action, colour in a heart. As each heart gets filled in, your habit grows and compounds. You start feeling good about the relationship with yourself. Others around you start to understand how you like to be loved and you will have a constant reminder each day to make yourself a priority in so many different ways.
Whether or not you received a valentines gift this year – you have the power to shower yourself with the love you want and deserve.
Don’t get caught up by wishing someone else will add value or meaning to your life. Every action of self-love you take will add a sprinkle of care and affection to the relationship you are building with yourself.
Your greatest responsibility is to love love yourself and know you are enough.
