"Love yourself first.

One of the most inexplicable, incredible things that we experience in life is love. This is romantic love with a partner, deep-seated love with a family member, mutual love for a friend, and even a passion and love for the work you do. Love is an incredibly motivating force that can drive you to do things you aren’t capable of by yourself. 

Having said all of that, many of us neglect the most fundamental form of love - Self-love. This sometimes gets a bad reputation because people are uncomfortable with the idea of giving yourself hugs or staring longingly at yourself in the mirror. That’s not all that self-love is...

Loving yourself is making decisions that are respectful to yourself, that help you maintain integrity. It’s accepting who you are with all of your strengths, weaknesses, quirks, issues, and passions. It’s being understanding of yourself and giving yourself grace when times are hard.

Adam Roa says it beautifully in his famous spoken word - “Treat yourself like someone you love.” Imagine how much doing that would change the conversation we have in our head.

Beyond the fact that you’re worthy of love and you deserve love, self-love is important because it enables you to give love. So those people and projects that are most important to you - You’re only going to be able to pour into them as much as you have to give.

That’s why today’s positivity quote is “Love yourself first”.

It’s not selfish to tell someone you don’t have the energy to do something for them. It’s allowing you to show up that much better when it is time to help.

It’s not selfish to take a mental health day at work if you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Respecting your needs is the best thing you could do for your work so that you move forward enthusiastically with it.

Jim Fortin says “Your doing is only as good as your being doing the doing”. So make sure you’re taking care of yourself, challenging yourself, and loving yourself in the ways that feel right to you so that you can be the person you want to be everywhere that takes you.

Self-love is a much larger topic than this, it's difficult to do, and it's uncomfortable at times. But like anything it’s something that can be improved and that only happens when you give attention to it.