What first comes to mind when you realize Valentine's Day is approaching? Is it a rush of urgency to get a loved one a gift or plan a special day? Do you start to reminisce on loving memories? How long does it take for you to think about ways you can love yourself?

As we progress through the year and continue to revisit JMB Living's theme of "Love Yourself Fully", why not dedicate some time and energy this Valentine's Day to loving yourself? Mindfulness is a great tool to developing simple and achievable ways to create space in each day that is dedicated to just you.

Ways to Elevate Your Self-Love

Evaluate Your Priorities

Where does taking care of yourself fall in your priorities? Is it a priority at all? While focusing on doing good work in your career and putting others first are good qualities to have and fulfilling behaviors, nourishing yourself first is so important too. The more time and care you put into yourself, the more you have to give. When we are giving more than we have energy, time, or space for, we can begin to resent those actions and see them as an obligation, rather than having a true willingness to give.

Making sure you add your needs to your priorities is not selfish—it's self-care and prevents burnout. The best balance of being a giving person comes when you are taking care of those around you, as well as yourself. When our individual needs are met and we take time for ourselves, we are invigorated and have more motivation at work, more energy at home, and peace throughout.

Loving yourself through adjusting your priorities looks like saying "no" when you do not have the bandwidth to give or attend; maintaining boundaries in certain relationships; staying in instead of going out when you would rather rest; going out when you deserve it—even if it means getting a babysitter. Look at your priorities: what are small things you can do to prioritize yourself in exchange for behaviors that previously depleted you?

Tailor Your Affirmations

Affirmations are a great mindfulness tool for improving your mood, intention-setting, and confidence-building with daily use. However, how mindfully are you cultivating your affirmations?

Affirmations at their core embody intention. Using a daily affirmation is beneficial regardless, but they are even more powerful when tied to an intention relevant in YOUR life. If you're unfamiliar with what intentions you might want to use to create an affirmation, read Realizing Intentions through Mindful Attention.

Integrate affirmations into your self-love, acceptance, and growth. Especially on those days when you're finding it hard to love yourself or struggling with self-confidence, or being content, find or create an affirmation to fill your being with love and acceptance. One of my favorite things about affirmations and their rising popularity is how many sources there are now to find great and beautiful affirmations. We include them in all of our Monday Morning emails (sign-up here) and throughout the JMB Living Journal, but I also love seeing them across Instagram and share inspirational ones on our Pinterest. These are all great resources if you're looking to add some variety to your affirmations.

Did you know the most powerful affirmations you can use are the ones you create yourself? When your intention comes from within and you utilize all of the tools involved in creating an affirmation, they become so much more impactful. Creating affirmations can be a detailed process with a lot of aspects people often forget, so I created The Secret to Creating Affirmations That Work—a course that takes you step-by-step through the process of creating successful affirmations so that you can be equipped with this powerful tool to help bring to life any of your own intentions.

Emphasize Self-Care

I went in-depth on what mindful self-care looks like and effective ways to practice it in my blog post "Putting Your Own (Face) Mask on First", so for this post, I wanted to focus on how you can use it to love yourself fully.

Whatever you do for self-care, that extra loving aspect comes from instilling your practice with mindfulness. Allow your mind to focus on your actions, your senses, and how the exercise is nourishing for your mind, body, and spirit. This practice prevents your mind from wandering and shifting to stressors, responsibilities, and other things that take you away from yourself. When you practice self-care, let your thoughts linger on how good it feels, or how the end result will benefit you.

Emphasizing self-care in an effort to love yourself fully looks like including it in your priorities. Self-care can be implemented in little aspects in each part of your day: a meditation in the morning, a walk during a work break, working out after work, lighting a candle after dinner and relaxing. Self-care is what you make it, so make it right for you.

Upscale Your Routine

Since routines are already integral parts of our day that we accomplish regardless, add something to your routine for yourself.

14 Things to Consider Adding to Your Routine

1. Making Your bed

2. Improving Your Space- lighting candles or letting in the sunshine

3. Movement- exercise/stretching/yoga

4. Deep Breathing

5. Meditation

6. Reading

7. Journaling

8. Fill pitcher or flasks with water for the day

9. Look at vision board

10. Say affirmations

11. Drink a glass of water with lemon first thing in the morning

12. Write a Gratitude/Abundance List

13. Create an Ideas/Opportunities List

14. Make a Healthy Breakfast