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When you’re practicing the art of self-care, you’re sure to hit a few obstacles along the way mainly because you are likely to be insanely busy. But whether it’s you’re struggling to find the time to focus on self-care, or whether it is just not part of your habitual routine — yet — there probably several things holding you back.
The good news is, whatever issue you come across in your journey to a lovely daily self-care routine there are ways around it. Here, you’ll discover 5 good self-care tips you can use to make the practice easier.
1. Incorporate self-care into your morning routine
Once your day has gotten started, it’s a lot more difficult to focus on self-care. Trying to fit it into your daily activities isn’t always easy. For this reason, it’s best to incorporate self-care into your morning routine.
It could mean getting up a fraction earlier or it could be negotiating with the family to give you space and quiet first thing with other people picking up some of your normal tasks. What you do in that time is up to you; relax by reading a book or working out first thing in the morning or wandering round the garden or going for a half hour walk. Whatever it is, doing it when you wake is one of the easiest ways to incorporate self-care into your daily life.
The same kind of principle applies when you get home — ask the family to give you space and negotiate with them about how and when. Asking for this help is an important act of self care!
Whether you take your quiet time early or later doesn’t matter. It all depends on your rhythm. The important thing is to have it.
2. Learn when to say no
Did you know that a large part of self-care is knowing when to say no? Some people find it much easier than others to say no to things. Perhaps you’re being asked to help a friend a little more than you’re comfortable with? Learning to say no is difficult, but it is essential for your wellbeing.
You’ll soon discover that nothing bad comes from saying no from time to time. In fact, it helps to build up boundaries, showing people how they can treat you. By saying no to anything that you aren’t comfortable with, it establishes healthy boundaries and shows you care and respect yourself.
Start with the easiest person or situation. Just practice saying ‘no’. You can phrase it differently if that is more comfortable. Something like ‘can I come back to you on that?’ or ‘I can’t do that now but I probably could next week.’ But make sure you keep trying and taking the time to notice that the sky doesn’t fall in when you draw a boundary.
3. Don’t forget to reward yourself
It’s important to make sure you’re rewarding yourself.
As you begin to keep up your self-care activities, reward yourself with something that’s going to make you feel good. It could be a new outfit, a day trip somewhere or something that contributes to your self-care routine such as a new book.
By rewarding yourself regularly in small ways you help yourself maintain momentum and motivation.
4. Take advantage of automated technology
One thing that’s going to help make your self-care journey easier, is automated technology. You can do this at home as well as in the enterprise. There are so many apps these days to make your days easier and free up bits of time.
For example, you can invest in automated vacuum cleaners which help to tidy the home for you. This frees up your time on chores, allowing you more time to relax. You can invest in automated software to schedule and plan. You can set up recurring deliveries so that you don’t keep going to the shops or doing everyday ordering for the business. You can invest in a VA who can manage many of the repetitive tasks that chew up your time and energy.
Any type of automated technology or outside support that can make your life easier is worth investing in.
5. Ensure you set realistic goals
The final tip you’ll absolutely want to follow, is to ensure you’re setting realistic goals. When adding self-care activities into your daily routine, you need to do it gradually. This is what helps you to build up the habit.
So, work out whether the goals you have set are achievable. If not, break them down a little until you’re comfortable you’ll easily be able to follow them.
So, there you have it — 5 awesome self-care tips you can use to build your routine and make life less stressful and more productive. It may take a while to get used to taking better care of yourself, but once it becomes a part of your daily routine you won’t look back and neither will your Social Enterprise as your team will take the lead from you and a team of people who care for themselves as well as for each other and the world is a true force to be reckoned with.
We do regular Reset and Restore sessions for founders and funders of social enterprises and impact programmes. Check out the website www.elizabethmorrisonline.com and put your name down to be alerted when the next one is running. We promise it will be time well spent when you feel your passion, energy and attention coming back and that fire in your belly burning brightly again.
Elizabeth Morris is a social impact specialist and experienced social enterprise strategist. Connect with her on https://twitter.com/ElizabethannM, https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-morris-9423bb20/ and SMART from the HEART group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2354161458152764/
