Something I think I notice about many of us Moms - we spend a LOT of time encouraging and supporting our kids. We adore them, of course, why wouldn't we? They're the most important things in the world to us and we , or at least I, teach my kids to learn to embrace everything about themselves that is different unique and special and to LOVE those things. We teach our kids to love themselves because they are worthy of love.

Why don't we tell ourselves the same thing?

We often see things about other people and compare ourselves to them. Everyone does it. How many times do you compare yourself to the Pinterest perfect Mom who has a perfect house and perfect car and perfect hair and body? Of course, then it causes you to feel insecure about our looks, talents and even your identity and can even cause us to be jealous. This wouldn’t be terrible EXCEPT for the consequences of jealousy usually lead to a life of being terribly miserable! Looking at what everyone else has and not seeing the uniqueness that you possess can cause you to not feel fulfilled and even fall into depression. So this year, why don't we take a look at what we can do this year to be intentional about loving ourselves! I love some of these ideas from Elijah Hollis on how to intentionally love yourself. It's not as easy as you'd think to begin, but it does become easier!

1. Find your IT. Start to find out what you are good at by trying out new hobbies or new things. Remember that it’s in the “TRY” that you find the “IT”. You’ll be shocked in what you find out who you are and may even find some hidden talents and treasures you never knew you had! It's when you push yourself and try hard that you often find out things about yourself that you never knew! If you stay content with what you know and do, do you give yourself a way to grow?
2. Stop comparing and start complimenting yourself. Oh, this is one I struggle with a lot! Take a moment and turn your eyes from looking at everyone else, and start looking at yourself and the amazing person you were uniquely designed to be! Write down all of the good qualities about yourself on a piece of paper or in your journal and keep it in front of yourself. We can easily forget all of the good features about ourselves and start to get focused only on the negative ones. While improvement is amazing, let’s start by focusing on what we are good at to create confidence in improving the things that we might not be as natural in. I I'll bet you'll see a dramatic change in the way that you view yourself when you start to focus on the good inside of you and then start to build upon that foundation.
3. Speak hope into your future. This might sound cheesy, but you are sending things into your future whether good or bad. You can either state something negative about yourself and start to speak that into existence for your future, or you can speak positive things into existence for your life. Identity is intentional, nor incidental. You create who you want to be every time you start a new day. Write down a definition of the person you are striving to be and keep it where you can see it regularly. You could even try stating this definition over yourself everyday out loud, because it’s in the repetition that you get the recognition. It can be LIFE CHANGING to “train” your thoughts and feelings into thinking and feeling properly about who you are as a person. Our thoughts are tricky but they can also be trained.

You know that you'd never let anyone talk poorly to your family- so you should also not let YOU talk poorly to YOURSELF. Think about this, when you learn to love and value yourself, others will, too, and you will also be teaching your children a lesson in self care that will stay with them for a lifetime!