We often hear the term “self-care” and the idea that we need to make time for ourselves. In this hustle culture, however, we often do the opposite of that. We may have every intention of taking time for ourselves yet time always seems to slip away. Does this resonate with you?
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What is Self Care?
Self-care is a practice that I highly encourage you to incorporate in your daily routine. Self-care is engaging in any activities to keep yourself feeling your best. Self-care can include practicing yoga, exercising, journaling, walking, or even sitting in silence doing absolutely nothing. As long as you are doing something that you enjoy, and which will have you feeling your very best. One quote that really stuck out to me was found in the book Essentialism -The Pursuit of Less, “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measure of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?” Think about this quote for a moment. We have the power to choose to measure our success in this way as well, it all starts with a change of your mindset.
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My Self Care Journey
While I am a huge advocate for self-care, I didn’t always feel this way. For the majority of my life, I knew of self-care, but I didn’t actually implement much of it into my daily life. I’ve realized most of this may stem from the fact that the people I was surrounded with were highly involved with the hustle culture, and encouraged me to do the same as they thought it was in my best interest. I thought I didn’t have time to make for myself. I’ve realized over the last 4 years that the people you surround yourself with really make the biggest impact on your life. I spent a majority of my time working hard, and filling my schedule up with different activities until I didn’t have any time left at the end of the day. Yet, while I wholeheartedly believe in the benefits of scheduling our daily activities, I believe we need to leave some open space in our schedules to just slow down. Over the course of the pandemic, like many people, was when I really began to understand just how beautiful a gift self-care really is.
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How to Practice Self Care
One of the best ways to incorporate self-care into your daily routine is to start your day with self-care! You may be wondering; how will I make time for self care in the mornings while I have responsibilities and a full-time job to get to? Creating a morning routine can be simple and realistic to fit your needs, while getting the amazing benefits of self care in little time. If you have a day off, or a little extra time to dedicate, you can always add on to your base morning routine!
To begin, think of every habit you have ever tried. Write these habits down on a piece of paper or into your journal and mark them with a +, =, or – to indicate habits that made you feel great, habits that made you feel decent, and habits that you could live without. Once you’ve done this, arrange the habits that made you feel great into the order of what your “ideal” morning routine would look like. Then you can start creating your everyday realistic morning routine that brings you the most joy. For me, I have created 3 different morning routines depending on the energy and time off that I have that day (on the basis of low, medium, and high energy). Here is an example of my medium energy routine that I follow on most mornings!
Medium Energy Routine
- Wake up around 7:15am
- Make my bed, brush teeth do skincare
- Do not check phone for the first 30 minutes
- Practice Yoga or Workout for 40 mins
- Shower & Make a Protein Smoothie
- Read for 20 mins
- Meditate for 7 mins
Do you have a morning routine that you follow? I would love to know your routine or any ideas that you have! Drop your ideas in the comments below!