The idea of self-care is glorious – but what truly defines taking care of ourselves? In one of my ribbit-hole adventures into the wide wide web, I discovered this article on Thought Catalog about ‘self-care’. According to the author, Brianna Wiest:
“self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.”
This topic has trended throughout the worlds of Instagram, wellness blogs and magazine articles, and even become a topic of conversation in the workplace.
However, the true essence of #selfcare is not to treat yo’ self (no matter what those donuts on insta tells you). But instead to inspire you to take care of yourself and help you strive to live the best life for yourself.
Consistently move your body
Consistently moving my body each day makes a huge difference in my world. Yet, it is the first thing to fall off if I have a bad day or am dealing with a stressful situation, friend or even work-related. Yes, I know counterintuitive this is. But when I’m feeling super overwhelmed, it’s like my whole body shuts down and while my mind is going 200 miles per minute.
I am my best self when I am consistently being active. Being active could be taking a walk outside each day, maintaining a home yoga practice, playing with your pup outside or even getting your lazy workout on with this video workout.
Break up with that toxic person in your life
The funny thing about relationships… is that sometimes we don’t even realize how those around us can affect us deeply. That person can be your boyfriend/girlfriend, a coworker, a family member or even your best friend. You can learn how to spot a toxic person here. Being toxic to you, does NOT mean that they are inherently a bad person, it might just mean that they might be bad for you.
I’ve begun to learn the affects of hanging out with people who drain my energy and why saying no is the best thing that I can do for myself. My priority must be to myself, no matter how much I love and want the best for the other person.
The hardest part is the ‘break-up’ and learning to let go and move on. The best advice I was given when dealing with this situation myself was to remember:
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn
When you’re reflecting on your relationships: are you proud of all those who are in your inner circle (it doesn’t have to be five )? Are you happy with the sum total? Do you feel like they boost you up and vice versa? Or do you leave feeling drained every time you see them?
Once I realized that this is something I can and should control, I’ve made efforts to change my behavior. As I’ve talked about in this post, 2018 is the year of saying yes to things that serve me and no to things and people who drain me of my energy.
Let go of those toxic people – you will be amazed by how much your energy shifts. Check out the links above, most of this articles helped me navigate the murky waters of adult friendships!
Maintain an early morning routine
Waking up early sucks. I used to be such an early bird and lately, I can barely drag myself out of bed for work. If you read self-improvement or productivity articles/books, then you know how highly valued a morning routine is for those uber-successful people.
I recommend reading Hal Elrod‘s Miracle Morning, which essentially uses the idea of habit stacking, which means that you pick a few habits you want to implement, make a sequence of those habits and then make the sequence its own new habit.
“Let today be the day you give up who’ve you been, for who you can become.” – Hal Elrod
However, sometimes an hour morning routine is sometimes out of the question for me( like I said, sometimes I have a hard time waking up!) When you’re super pressed for time, here is a way to reap the benefits of a ‘miracle morning’ in a six minute window.
A morning routine can allow you to explore different things that you might not have time for otherwise. Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, rose at 4:00am each morning to work on this novel before working a full day, seeing patients. A morning routine is a great way to spend time expanding your knowledge, setting intentions for the day and setting a healthy and energetic tone to the rest of your day.
Become financially literate
Financial literacy is such an important and,in my opinion, the absolute worst part about being an adult. Honestly, I fail so hard at this – mostly because I find it tedious and I don’t have a lot of knowledge in this area (so I avoid it… smart, I know). But in order to build more wealth, grow and do the things that you want to be able to do in like, i.e.. buy a house, invest in the stock market, etc., you do you have to be financially literate.
In order to build my knowledge base of budgets, investing and a host of other financial topics; I’ve added the above three books to my To Be Read list for 2018. This includes Rich Bitch by Nicole Lapin, Worth It by Amanda Stein and The Total Money Makeover by David Ramsey.
I tend to avoid dealing with complicated financial issues, mainly because I don’t understand them. However, understanding means that we are half-way there to earning more and investing our money intelligently.
Nourish your body
Meal prep, people – its the wave of the future! Or at the very least, its an adultish act of self-care. I use Meal Prep on Fleek to find recipes, because they have a huge repertoire of quick and easy recipes for lunch, breakfast and dinner. I’m lazy af when it comes to cooking for myself because I always make way too much and eating the same thing for days is definitely not my thing.
But for health and wellness, I decided to give it a go this week. I made Balsamic Sausage and Vegetables for lunch and these paleo egg cups for breakfast this week. Both took less than 15 minutes to prepare and less than 60 minutes to cook! #mealprepscore
More Sleep = Winning at life
I could talk about all the stats about how a lack sleep affects our cognitive state and how sleep can change our brain productivity. But, your bed is hella comfy, so get it in and stay in it for a minimum of seven hours. And try to wake up around the same time each day. It’s not difficult, just hard to maintain sometimes.
The Fun Parts of Self-Care
Self-care is a mixture of both the fun things that make you happy and can release stress and tension, as well as the day to day things that we do to make ourselves better. I’m a BIG fan of take a bath with epsom salts, candles and music. And that’s okay. Treating yo’self with those instgrammable donuts (i’m looking at your Mini Donut Factory) is okay too – just maybe not every single day.
Originally published at www.meganforde.com