I am sure that someone has told you at least once that you have to love yourself. We have all heard that as part of a self improvement conversation right?

Ok, so I don’t have to say that to you. I do wanna share with you why you really do need to put yourself first for once in your life.

I am that person that always makes time to love, care for others. You can always find me somewhere helping someone, making commitments to help and showing compassion for others. I do not regret it one bit. It is how I am built and I am not mad about it. The thing about it is I am always hoping that the same can be returned to me. I need to carve out the same amount of time, commitment, love and compassion for myself!

My whole current mood?

I am going to commit to myself before I commit to them. Decided that I am going to kind to myself before I am kind to others. This girl is going to be her own hype man and cheer for herself before she does it for you! I am going to give love to me before I love all of you. I know that I am doing us all a favor if I do this too.

We should all give to ourselves first what we want from others. That way we do not feel empty or rejected because we did not get it from them. We need to give to ourselves what we expect to give to others and others to give in return. Be the change you wanna see! We have to! Otherwise we will never really know what our truth is.

You are not being Narcissistic

No, you are not!

It truly does feel great to love someone. I love that fact that I want to support and cheer for other people. It does my heart good. After all that I give away, I am looking for others to want to love, support and cheer for me too.

Unless we know what that looks like for ourselves, we will all struggle living that truth. You have to know what good, true, and authentic love looks like for you before you can be sure that is what you are receiving. We have to know what it feels like to love, support, and cheer ourselves on. This is going to take some real work too. I know. It is a part of each moment I have daily.

This means that you are going to have to spend time learning, practicing, and fine tuning how you love and support yourself…It really makes a difference. Call it what you want. Self love? Self care? All I know is you have to be intentional about it. It is so easy to forget about you when you are so busy doing for others.

Instead of giving up on a dream or idea you have, push yourself to see it happen

Don’t be so hard on yourself or say harsh words, see your humanity and ease off a bit

Are you guilty of overworking or overthinking, give yourself a break and go home to love on your tribe.

Instead of saying yes to go and be with friends when you don’t feel up to it, treat yourself well and say no thank you, tonight is not a good night.

If you have a habit of going out of your way to please someone, whether work or play, decide to choose you and be kind to yourself.

We have to learn how to love ourselves thoroughly. I am learning to be my own hype man…my own cheerleader. It will be easier to extend the same curtesy to others and even more so to yourself the more we practice it.

Where do we start?

Most of us think that if we just work, hustle, commit, support and love harder for others, it will all come back to us. We believe that people will do the same for us; that the company will acknowledge the work we put in.

Ok, let’s be honest with ourselves. We don’t live in a world where if we love them, they will love us…then we can love ourselves. Or maybe if we support them, they will support us…then we feel safe enough to support ourselves? Noooooo!

It will not work like that! We have to start with ourselves. Let’s try it…

You love you…you love them…they love you

This is what I am working on. It is a challenge because I am a people-pleaser. I am working on doing it in reverse. Resetting my thinking to see what I get it. It is something that I will have to work on daily. I am willing to put in the work to get a better me.

I am gonna smile, not wait for someone to make me smile. This girl right here is making moves. I am going to cheer her on and not wait for someone to say it’s ok to celebrate. There is nothing wrong with putting yourself first.

What if we fixed our own problems instead or someone else’s? I spend more time with myself now so that I can figure out what really makes me happy. Choose you over them sometime, most of the time. Why not all of the time? Take time to cheer yourself on. Look at what you have accomplished this year alone. You deserve a little party!

Taking care of you first only benefits you and everyone connected to you. If you are not your best self, you can’t give your best to anyone.