It's a saying we hear time and time again, "You have to love yourself before you can learn to love anyone else." It really is a simple concept that many people overlook. We think day in and day out "if only I had more money or if only I looked like this celebrity." The thing about looking at ways to make our life perfect, we often don't think about how it's going to fix the problems that we battle within ourselves each and every day.

Personally, my biggest problem is struggling with my self-confidence and body image. Ever since I was old enough to be dragged around to stores by my mom and my sister, I hated it. I hated trying on clothes and hating the way things fit on me. I eventually just went through the "tomboy" phase so I could wear baggy clothes and not have to worry about what I looked like in anything that felt just a little bit snug. I do still have issues with that, but I'm starting to eat healthy and slow, but surely, getting into exercising once again.

Now that you all know where I'm coming from, I'll get to the point. No matter what you might be dealing with, be it body-image, addiction, or just thinking that you aren't good enough, you have to first come to the realization that you are. You have to make yourself happy with the person that you are, all parts, through and through.

I once told someone, "The reason it is so easy to see celebrities, athletes, or just people in your life to be such great people worthy of great things, especially your love and attention, is because we may only see the good parts of these people. We don't know what is happening behind the scenes or things that they are struggling with underneath. We don't see what makes them real people, just like us."

It's easy to go and say someone has a perfect life and love them for it, but the real relationships you may enter will have struggles because you have a love a person for all that they are, not just the parts that you like. Much like these relationships, the one that we have with ourselves are difficult. We can pick ourselves apart, piece by piece, and decide because of those things we aren't worthy to love ourselves. The real question here is how can we expect others to love us when we don't give ourselves the opportunity to do so first?

If we do find problems within ourselves that we will not accept, I offer you this piece of advice that was given to me several times, "Take action and change the things you cannot accept, but also accept the things that you cannot change." If changing yourself is what will make you happy, then go for it! If you cannot change then try your best to accept it, move on, and find a way to love yourself in spite of it.