No Comparison Necessary
August 13, 2020
When it comes down to making time for myself. I find it way more difficult than what social media and the good ‘ol interwebs make it out to be.
For me, self-care doesn’t look like the hair wrapped in a towel, modeling a fluffy robe, and sipping a steaming cup of tea, while gazing dreamily off of a sun-drenched patio image that we see all too often. In my opinion, self-care can and does take on many forms and appears in all of our lives in a variety of ways.
One of the most obvious self-care points that I tend to neglect for myself is recognizing my need for actual rest. The type of rest that requires that I am simply breathing and just being me. For these moments, putting my needs before the needs of my loved ones, and recharging my batteries so that I can continue to be the Alleged Superwoman that I am accused of being.
In my journey, I have found that my primary issue is carving out the time for it in my day – EVERY DAY.
How do I make more time for self-care in my already taxing routine?
These are some of the things I started to do to make more time in the day for me.
One way to make time for self-care is to schedule it into your daily or weekly routine. This could mean setting aside a specific time each day for self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, or journaling. If you are anything like me, you are asking yourself (out loud to the screen that you are reading), “and just what does that look like in real life?” I have made a conscious effort to walk at least one mile at least 3 days out of the week. I also rest (and I do mean REST) whenever my body tells me that I need to pause and do absolutely nothing. This a quick way for me to reset and recharge these introverted batteries of mine. That may result in you having to actually say NO to the folks to whom you wouldn’t ordinarily utter that word.
Another way is to prioritize self-care by making it a non-negotiable part of your daily routine, such as taking a shower or brushing your teeth. Write out a contract with yourself, that requires adding YOUR self-care activities to your actual routine and not the list that you create for yourself that never really gets done. In school, we learned about creating S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals. Essentially, the goals we set should always have these characteristics so that they can be attained. Think S.M.A.R.T. when adding these things to your routine.
Also, you can try to find and eliminate activities that don’t add value to your life and use that time for self-care instead. This aspect of creating space for self-care has been the most difficult for me. When we are going through our day, the last thing we think is that the things we are doing aren’t adding any value. How often are you scrolling mindlessly, going down one rabbit hole after another? Look at the day, and scratch out the things that are helping you to be the Superhuman that you are alleged to be. Join me on this journey. There is only one you, take care.
