Four Ways I Prioritize Self Care

How do you feel about self care? Making time for self care when you have to deal with the craziness of everyday life isn’t easy. But the best way to approach it is in small, steady steps. They say it takes 21 days to build a habit. This summer I implemented 4 self care changes into my daily routine to develop new and healthy habits for my mind and body. Here are the 4 ways I prioritized my self care this summer.

Make a morning self care routine

I realized that I needed to take care of myself before I could do anything else in this life. That’s why I started implementing a regular morning routine to make sure that my physical and mental health were being taken care of. Mornings are a great time to prepare yourself for the day ahead.

I started waking up 30 minutes earlier than I usually would so I could give myself time to start my morning by reading a chapter or two. This helps set my mind up for the day. And I would leave myself about 5 minutes to put together my to-do list for the day and could visually see the tasks I had to tackle. By setting up my mornings for success, I would be in a better headspace to find success throughout my day.

Run regularly

I love running because it’s the perfect activity that forces me to go offline, get on my feet, and take in some sun – most things I don’t get to do when I’m at home. So this summer I was running 3-4 times a week, making sure to give my body time to rest in between running days. And the best part about running in the summer is exploring nature and your surroundings.

It’s so easy to get caught up in work and our busy lives which makes it hard to find time to log off and prioritize taking care of ourselves. If you need a way to reboot from work or a way to gain back some lacking Vitamin D then I would suggest taking up running. If running isn’t for you, then you can do all the things I talked about but by walking instead. As long as you remember to warm up before you go and cool down when you’re done.

Make time for fun

For me, it’s playing with my dog. For you, it could be reading a book, listening to music from your favourite artist, or finding a podcast about a topic you really enjoy. Try prioritizing your mental health self care and your physical self care. Whatever it is, dedicate at least 15 mins every day to doing that one thing. Seriously.

Schedule it into your phone, write it down in your agenda, whatever you need to do to remind yourself to do that that you enjoy. And do it with no distractions – so put your phone away, unless you’re using it for that particular activity. The same way we block out times in our schedule for work or appointments, we should be prioritizing time to do things we enjoy.

Write down wins

At the end of every week, I started writing down the 3 successes that I accomplished that week. It was a good way for me to spend even 5 minutes recognizing my wins for the week. It was also a great progress check for longer-term goals I was working on and it was basically a simple way for me to tell myself “Good job”.

As a freelancer and business owner, I forget to do this all the time. But it’s important for us to recognize our wins. It might feel weird at first, but especially when things seem tough to do, this is a simple way for us all to realize just how good we’re actually doing.

Change can be hard for many people but it’s doesn’t have to be a scary journey. You can start implementing slow and steady changes into your routine to help you learn new things and help you feel better prioritize your self care. It will most likely be hard, in the beginning, to keep up, but as long as you keep at it, you’ll make it into a habit eventually. And as long as you remember why you’re doing it – to be a better you – then that will always be the best motivation.