I used to think this was a myth because I felt like I had no shortage of love for the people around me, despite having next to zero love for myself. 

It took me years to understand that love–like most things in life–is a journey and not a destination. You don’t just wake up one day and instantly have it. Instead, self-love is something that is built over time, a constant, never-ending process that you can choose to participate in during the small moments that make up each day. 

So even though I may not have felt like I loved myself, there were moments that I did.

The following tips are things that I have learned that helped me build a more solid foundation of love for myself by intentionally incorporating them into my daily life, and I’m hoping they might work for you too.

1. Find what brings you joy

What brings you joy? When do you feel most at ease and content? If you’ve never asked yourself these questions before, start–and then start paying attention to what the answers might be. Relate these questions to quests of health too: what types of movement bring you joy? Dancing? Walking? Hiking? How can you breathe and eat in ways that bring you joy?

Start to cultivate an awareness of the things that invite more joy and presence into your life so you know what to do more of. This is a good time to start a journaling practice, especially ones that allow you to make note of how you’re feeling.

2. Define your needs / values

As you start to become aware of the things that bring you joy, you might recognize certain patterns emerging in your preferences. These patterns are your needs and/or values in life. The things that are most important to you are the essence of you. So start taking note of what’s important to you and finding ways to bring more intentionality to how you spend your time and energy. 

3. Put it all into practice

Don’t tell yourself you’ll do it later or tomorrow or next week, next month, next year, etc… This is the time to stop making excuses. Make your self-care a priority and do the things that you know you need to be your happiest, truest self. Do you need to spend time with people you love to feel cared for? Schedule it. Do you need to spend time alone to feel fulfilled? Pencil in that time for yourself and don’t let anything disrupt it. Put your needs, values, and preferences into practice. 

This also relates to your health as well. Take care of your body. Make time to move, to breathe, to eat something more than whatever you can scarf down the fastest. And when you do, make sure you’re moving, breathing, and eating in ways that bring you the most joy and contribute to your values.

4. Set clear boundaries

Don’t be afraid to say no. This one, I know all too well, is easier said than done, but it’s incredibly important. When you get specific and clear about how you will spend your time and energy, you stop letting unnecessary things get in the way. You take control over your own life, and claim the empowerment of yourself. Sure, life is always going to have times when it gets in the way. Nothing can ever be entirely predictable, but having a clear plan and boundaries in place will ensure that no time is spent wasted on things that are within your control to avoid. Don’t let your power be spent on anything that doesn’t aid your most authentic self.

5. Surround yourself with people who love you for you

We become the people we spend the most time with—whether we realize it or not. So it’s important that the people we spend our time and energy on are the people who will love us for who we are, who demonstrate and give us the kind of love we should be giving to ourselves. It’s not always easy to know how to love yourself, but when you have a circle of people who show you how to love yourself, you will naturally start to treat yourself with that love as well. The voices of your loved ones will become the loving voice inside your head. 

Loving yourself is a process, a choice we make daily. Just like any kind of love, it requires that we show up and make the choice to give ourselves kindness, grace, and acceptance for where we’re at in any given moment. Give yourself the love you’ve always wanted, and watch how much more willing you are to show up in your life–for better and for worse.

It was her idea to set him up with her roommate. She thought it would make it easier, her wanting for him, to have that boundary line between them. They were teammates, and she didn’t want to destroy their chances of winning the championship if things didn’t work out between them. She didn’t realize how much it would hurt seeing him with Tori in front of her face.

She thought of the way they looked on the field. The crowd cheering from the stand, the players jumping and colliding in a wild dance of glee. She’d searched for his face in the crowd, the beaming smile on her face. They’d did it. They’d won. But the smile quickly vanished the second she saw Tori leap in his arms, their lips meeting for a midair kiss so romantic it made her heart drop to her stomach so fast she thought she would vomit.

Her eyes are still burning from the thought as she hops out of the truck and releases the straps of her shinguards, tossing them into the passenger seat. She pulls her socks high above her knees, her teeth chattering from the cold. Her jersey is still wet with sweat and sticking to her back. Briefly, she wishes she’d remembered to bring a jacket.

But then she starts to run.

Her lungs burn with every icy breath. The snowflakes whip into her skin and leave tiny pinprick puddles where they dissolve. But she keeps running until the images no longer overwhelm her mind and all she feels is the sweet relief of nothing.

She returns to her truck delightfully numb. 

Until she she’s him standing there, leaning up against her truck with his hands in his pockets. His lips lift slightly at the sight of her and she stops in her tracks, frozen in place as he pushes himself off the truck and walks steadily toward her. 

Snowflakes gather on her eyelashes, blurring her vision and she welcomes it, but they melt too quickly, the condensation sliding down the same tracks left behind by her tears.

“Hey,” he says when he’s close enough for her to hear.

“We did it,” she says, trying–and failing–to conjure up the enthusiasm for their win she’d felt before she saw him wrapped together with her roommate.

“We did,” he says, his smile lifting a little more.

He seems nervous. He steps a little closer to her. She should back away, put some distance between them, far enough so that she can’t feel the aching, pulsing nearness of him, but she doesn’t.

“Why’d you leave?” he asks.

She fights back the tears that spring to her eyes, determined not to cry in front of him. 

“I…” she starts, but finds that the words that usually come so easily to her have failed her.

She licks her lips, dry and cracking in the cold, and turns her head toward the sea, still laughing at her with its calm and unrelenting pushing and pulling. It makes her angry, suddenly, and she surrenders to the rage warming her from within.

She turns to him, her fury blazing in her eyes. “How could you not see it?” she asks. “Are you really that clueless?”

He holds her gaze, his face unreadable as always. “What do you mean?”

“I looked for you after the game. The second we won, I looked for you. But then I saw you with Tori, and I just…I couldn’t…How can you not see how much I’m in love with you?”

At this, his eyes widen slightly. He takes another step toward her. The tops of their shoes touch, and she feels the warmth of his body radiating into her. His hands wrap around her in slow motion, pulling her into his embrace. She lets herself be enveloped by him, breathes in his warmth and the smell of the field, their win, his sweat mixed with the salt-tinged snowflakes melted on his skin.

“I looked for you too,” he says, his breath warm against her ear, “after the game. It was you I wanted to celebrate with. Only you.” He cups her face in his hands, cradling the back of her head with his fingers threaded through her hair. “I broke up with Tori.” he says. “I broke up with her and came here to find you. So I could make you see how much I’m in love with you too.”

The snow falls down all around them as their lips meet–finally–for the first time, the magical pieces of her life falling perfectly into place at last.