Do you (really) LOVE YOURSELF? Want to find out?

Here’s my list of things you’ll do, if you TRULY love yourself.

YOU WILL:

1) Let people down and disappoint others periodically.
2) Make decisions in accordance with your values, thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants (NOT what others expect of you).
3) Set and enforce boundaries with others; say “NO” at times
4) Listen to your HEART and what it’s telling you
5) Create difficult moments for yourself (but trust you can handle them)
6) Proactively put yourself into uncomfortable / hard situations (often) for the sake of growth and development
7) Know it’s okay to make mistakes and fail (and forgive yourself for those)
8) Accept that others might not understand you, at all times
9) Challenge yourself, and recognize life isn’t supposed to be easy
10) Be willing to lose an old friendship/relationship that no longer serves you
11) Go through the painful process of self-actualization

And here’s the list of things you WON’T do:

1) People please and try to make everyone happy
2) Say yes to everyone and everything
3) Wonder (and care too much) about what people think (especially of YOU)
4) Try to be perfect
5) Get roped into doing things you don’t really want
6) Expect life to be easy
7) Force friendships and relationships that aren’t really respectful or healthy
8) Refuse to make changes to get what you (really) want
9) Pay way too much attention to what “everyone else” is doing
10) Allow fear to hold you back from trying new things

People talk a lot about “self-love”, “self-care” and “self-compassion”. I tend to think these terms are often misused and misunderstood.

Self-love isn’t about taking a bubble bath, hitting the spa for a day, or having some “me time”. Sure, those things can be a PART of self-love. But, there’s so much more to truly loving oneself, and I think, it’s THIS.

For most of us, practicing self-love is a journey; not a destination. It’s a process. We can continually work at doing it more fully.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in leadership, a big question I have is: how do you help OTHERS around you practice self-love?

Sharing with a few of you, who I think will (especially) appreciate this video. Many of you are actively working to practice self-love, from what I see! (One of you sent me an IG post last week that was the inspiration for this video!).