14 Ways To Show Yourself Love This Valentine’s Day

This Valentine’s Day gift yourself a day of powerful love. A day to spoil and take time for yourself. Show yourself the deep gratitude you have for the beautiful woman you are.

Women often spend a lot of their time putting other people’s needs before their own, whether it be the needs of our children, partner, colleagues, friends, or peers. What is important is that we recognize this way of being in ourselves and we reward it by investing in and loving ourselves.

Research shows that women who make themselves a priority through self-love and their pursuit of passions, not only feel confident and successful, but are happy in who they are and the lives they live.

Spend this Valentine’s Day showing yourself infinite amounts of love – here are 14 ways how:

• Pamper yourself from the moment you wake-up. Take longer in the shower or bath, spray on your most expensive perfume, wear the outfit and shoes that make you feel your best, or have a facial or massage on you.
  
• Create a list of self-love assets. At breakfast create a list of all the things you’re proudest of about yourself. What do you love about being you? What do you love about living your life in this moment? Take the list and put it somewhere so you will see it multiple times throughout the day. Be it in your purse, the car, on the fridge, or stuck to the side of your computer screen – make this list visible all day as a reminder.
• Eat what you want when you want it and without guilt. Today, eat the bigger breakfast, buy the full-fat, highly caffeinated, or sugary larger than normal drink and don’t think twice. Drown your tea or hot chocolate in whole milk and don’t share the cake or pastry, eat it all, indulge.
  
• Create a playlist of your ten favorite songs and put it on repeat. Music is the nectar of the gods so surround yourself in your favorite tunes all day. Put your ear-buds in and sing-it loud, dance-it out on the bus, or while on your work space.
  
• Take a walk without a destination or goal in mind. During lunch or after work turn off your cell phone or better yet, leave it behind and walk in a direction you never have before. Observe the things you walk by – the street, the buildings or houses, the people; feel what the air is like on your face and gift a smile to every person you walk pass.
  
• Be in the presence of others and 100% with yourself. Turn off your cell phone for a few hours and sit or walk in silence, focusing on the voice inside you. Be it sitting in a cafe, walking down a busy street or visiting a shop or gallery, be totally present to only your thoughts and do not permit the outside world to distract you.
  
• Socially switch off and read a book in the moment. Choose a book you’ve been wanting to read, that has been sitting on the night stand or was recommended by a friend. Carry it with you and switch off from all your social media accounts for the entire day. Every time you feel the need to check your phone or social feeds, take out the book and read a page from it instead.
  
• Feed your body oxygen by getting active. Do one thing today to ignite your muscles with the oxygen they need to thrive. Be active by taking the stairs, running around the block, doing an hour of yoga or Pilates, kicking or catching a ball with your children, or taking your first ever cycle class.
  
• Do something playful of the child-like-kind. Think back to when you were eight or ten, what did you love doing that was fun and playful? Maybe it was skipping down the street, singing a song, riding a skateboard, whistling, collecting flowers, drawing a picture, or climbing a tree. Act like a child at least once today.
  
• Give yourself flowers. The bigger and the brighter the bunch the better. Pick them up as you head into work or have them delivered. Throughout the day smell them often, and drink in their brightness.

RELATED: How My Daughters Helped Me Learn To Love Myself In Ways I Never Thought I Could

• Take yourself on a date. Take yourself to the movies or to see a show. Maybe there is a new movie, an exhibit at a gallery, a theatrical performance, or a comedy show you have been wanting to see and keep putting off. Buy the big pop-corn and sit in the middle or purchase the more expensive seat.
  
• Protect your day as your day of love. Keep your day as free as you can of meetings, after work meet-ups or lengthy work telephone calls. Limit your email activity to a few hours in the morning and in the afternoon, and where possible limit how much you check email throughout the day. Say “No” to last minute meeting requests and choose instead to schedule them for tomorrow.
  
• Dream and draw your possibility in the world. Take some time and day dream what is possible for you in the world, if money, time,  or place was no constraint. What future do you dream of? Where would you be? Who with and why? What would you be doing there? Grab colored pens or pencils, and some paper and draw it. Pin it to your fridge or walk at work to remind you of where you are headed.
  
  

• Sleep of the most powerful kind. After the day is done and the children asleep, get ready for bed an hour or two earlier than you usually would. Turn off your cell phone and put it charging in another room. Put nice newly washed sheets on your bed. Shower off the day and change into your favorite or sexiest pajamas, then crawl into bed.

While for some it may be difficult to complete all 14 ways in one day, it is important that women not only dedicate one day a year to making ourselves a priority, but that we commit 365 days a year to loving ourselves, always.