If you’ve walked into any store within the past month, it’s pretty obvious that Valentine’s Day is almost here. Shelves are filled with candy hearts, stuffed animals, and beautiful red and pink bouquets of flowers. Jewelry stores have flooded TV with commercials of happy couples giving each other gifts, and card companies are all reminding us that we need to find the perfect card for that special someone.

While I’m very happy that I have a wonderful boyfriend who I will be celebrating Valentine’s Day with this year, I’ve also decided that this Valentine’s Day, I’m going to focus on loving myself first.

That probably sounds a little crazy, right? Self-love? On Valentine’s Day, a holiday commercialized around the idea of loving another person? However, in all actuality, it’s actually a pretty awesome idea.

For starters, it’s very difficult to love someone else fully if you don’t love yourself. When you’re constantly putting your energy into knocking yourself down and beating yourself up, you’re essentially left with an empty cup. When you have this empty cup, there’s no way for you to find some energy to pour into loving someone else. Also, you are the only person who will be with yourself 100% of the time. There won’t always be someone else there to comfort you and give you support. You have to learn to be your own best friend and your own biggest support because there will inevitably be times when you desperately need someone and the only person there is you. When you learn to love yourself, you learn to be okay with your faults and weaknesses and learn how to cope better when things go wrong.

YouTuber Lilly Singh said, “Love who you are, embrace who you are. Love yourself. When you love yourself, people can kind of pick up on that: they can see confidence, they can see self-esteem, and naturally, people gravitate towards you.” When you radiate self-love and light, people can’t help but want to be around you. When you’re kinder to yourself and love yourself more, you will just generally be happier, which obviously will make you and those around you feel better too!

In my experience as a Local Chapter Leader for the amazing organization I AM THAT GIRL, I’ve learned that helping myself and others turn self-doubt into self-love is incredibly rewarding. When we stop worrying so much about everything we aren’t, we are able to embrace all that we are and use our unique talents to make the world a better place! We are able to connect with others and ourselves on a much deeper level than when we are constantly telling ourselves that we aren’t good enough.

Lastly, we are able to be better friends, siblings, coworkers, teachers, parents, daughters, sons, and partners when we love ourselves. As Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth has said, “If you can learn to love yourself and all the flaws, you can love other people so much better. And that makes you so happy.”

So, this Valentine’s Day, I challenge you to focus on self-love. Once you embrace your undeniable beauty and worth, it will all fall into place.