If you’re being honest with yourself, do you find that you wake up every day feeling a little overwhelmed with just life in general, with all of the things that you have to do, with all of the people who need you, and you just feel like there’s never enough time in the day? Maybe you feel like you are never doing enough and you just have this constant sort of pit in your stomach? Do you ever ask yourself things like ‘When am I going to get my life together? When am I going to arrive and not be so irritable all the time, or not be so frustrated with my kids all the time?’ 

If that is you, I want you to know that today’s episode is going to bring hope. It’s going to bring light to a really tough situation and a tough topic to talk about, especially as a mom. I’m going to offer you 5 steps to make self-care a priority for you.

This is a really special topic for me because it is something that I personally have struggled with a lot. And if I’m being honest, it’s something that I still struggle with in certain areas. And I want to be vulnerable as I always am in this podcast. I want to share with you personal experiences, things that have gotten me off track, and things that have gotten me back on track. I really just want to be open and honest with you today about this topic, because I really honestly feel like it can make or break your happiness in life.

One of my favorite books, Hands-Free Mama, by Rachel Macy Stafford. She challenged me to slow down in so many deep ways, and that book was truly life-changing for me, so make sure to check it out!

Now, self-care is a mindset. It’s a practice. It’s definitely not something that I think you can just learn and then be done with it. It’s something that you have to constantly be thinking about, so if you’re ready to start thinking about it and being intentional about it, let’s start!

I really want to walk you through how to prioritize your self-care and give you some simple steps that you can take to implement this into your routine. 

Step #1: Decide What to Focus on First

When we think of self care, we think of all the things that we’re doing wrong, or all the areas in which we could improve on. This leads to more overwhelm and leads to feeling stuck.

I recommend that you just focus on one to two areas at a time and really start moving slowly until you get into a routine. And then of course, you can always add more, but there should be something that you’re working on and improving.

You could start with a morning routine, eating regular meals, a night away, etc. 

Throw excuses out the window. Make it happen. You are so important, and if you don’t prioritize your self-care, no one else will.

Step #2: Start Small

Starting small is going to be really helpful because I don’t want you jumping headfirst into an activity with unrealistic expectations.

For example, if you’re not already consistently working out, maybe committing to working out 60 minutes a day is too big of a jump. Just a little bit of progress is enough to keep you moving.

Atomic Habits by James Clear was a huge help for me to get my mindset right around these things, like setting intentions and starting to do things by just doing the thing for 2 minutes at first.

We don’t have to do things with an all or nothing mentality. We have the freedom to start small, especially after having kids. Our capacity changes once we have kids, and we have to figure out what our new capacity is.

What if you just shifted your perspective, and instead of going all in at someone else’s level, you just pick something all in at your level? 

Step #3: Schedule the Time

Time is not just going to instantly appear out of nowhere. We all have time, it’s just about intentionally scheduling it to hold what we need it to hold.

It’s really important that you set a time that you are going to focus on specific habits that you want to put into place or different self-care practices that you want to do.

Try to schedule the time and keep it consistent, because then it’ll just become automatic. And that is what a good habit does. That is what self-care is all about is creating those routines and creating those habits.

Step #4: Stay on Track

Anytime you start implementing something new, obviously, you need to be intentional. It’s really helpful if you have someone else that can help you keep yourself accountable, because we tend to be really good at keeping others accountable, right? But when it comes to ourselves, it’s really tricky.

We really need to build up that relationship with ourselves. We need to have that self-confidence and that self-esteem that we are worth it, and that our health is so important.

Step #5: Celebrate Your Progress

It’s really easy for us to be down on ourselves. It’s really easy for us to feel like we’re not doing enough. But we need to celebrate the wins, even if they’re small, because when we celebrate things, we replicate those things. Our brain gets really excited when we get excited, and so we need to always be celebrating.

I have a ‘Win Wall’ that I keep up with all of my wins, and I love going back and looking at it to celebrate my wins and the progress that I’ve seen.

Also, we have to make sure that we’re slowing down enough to even notice and celebrate our progress and wins!

5 Areas of Self-Care

1. Physical Self-Care: These are activities that promote your well being like nutrition, exercise, and sleep. Scheduling doctors appointments and well-checks fall into this category as well.
2. Emotional Self-Care: These are activities that actually help you connect and process and reflect on a full range of emotions. This includes things like journaling, counseling, etc.
3. Social Self-Care: This is making time for your friends, family, and spouse. This looks like having those meaningful connections and conversations.
4. Spiritual Self-Care: These are things like studying the Bible, prayer, meditating, etc.  
5. Practical Self-Care: These are tasks that you complete that fulfill your core aspects of life in order to prevent stressful situations. These are things like money management, home organization, scheduling, and taking control of your calendar.

Quotes to Note:

“There’s just so much that goes into self-care. It’s not even just the physical, it’s so much more than that.”

“As Moms, we have to be aware of when things are too busy, and we have to be able to do the hard thing and pull back.”

“You should have time to take care of yourself; that should be a top priority.”

“It’s about really understanding what your needs are and what you need to do to meet those needs.”

Resources:

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