What Self-Care Actually Looks Like (& 4 Tips to Make it Stick!)
Ironic, huh?
I started writing this post over a year ago sitting on my couch, feeling intense bouts of vertigo and nausea pending the results of a covid test...
don’t worry - it came back negative!
But that’s almost what made me want to write it because in the midst of this bout of illness—the first I’d had in 6 months and the first of the Covid-19 pandemic that put the world into such gridlock—I realized something really important.
when it comes to burnout, we’ve got it all wrong!
Even now, I’m having another, similar realization. This past weekend I got some devastating news. A past student of mine from my day job passed away suddenly. He was only a senior in high school and it was heartbreaking. Devastating.
In my almost 3 years of being in this position, I’ve never dealt with something like this. Honestly, I never thought I would. I didn’t think this would be part of my job description.
But what I did know would be is developing relationships with my students and caring so damn much about them that at times, their hurts become mine. Their insecurities become mine. And in this instance, their grief became mine.
all of this got me thinking about
what self-care actually is…
It isn't me listing off all the self-care activities you "should" do. I don't know you and I don't know your life. I don’t know what you need or what aspect of self-care you’re lacking. So that would be BS anyway. So I won’t belabor you on why you need self-care in your life. No, this post is going to be something different.
We’ve already looked into the different types of self-care, so we’re not getting into that either! What we are getting into is some specific tips to change your perspective on self-care…
But, before I get into that, I’ve been thinking bout the things that often burn us out—the causes of burnout, if you will—and these steps we can take to intentionally take our lives back! What I ultimately came up with were 5 pillars and 5 causes of burnout that, if we can overcome them, will help us to make burnout a choice in our lives, too! They are…
The 5 Causes of Burnout in Achievers…
A LACK OF CLARITY & SELF-AWARENESS - here
A LACK OF SELF-CARE - this post!
A LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY - here
A LACK OF BOUNDARIES - here
A LACK OF ANTI-HUSTLE HABITS - Coming Soon!
Now, back to self-care...
But before we get into that, let me just state that I know that self-care isn’t exactly the sexiest topic in the world…but I think we all know how necessary it is, right?! You can’t ditch burnout and stress less without, right?! So, let’s get into it…
#1
Change your perspective.
When so many of us think of self-care, we think of it as another item on our to-do list and I bet you might be thinking of that even more now that I’ve shown you that there are actually 5 different types. But, instead of thinking of it as something to add to your to-do list, what if instead, we thought of it as the foundation? The thing that makes everything else on the to-do list easier? Because honestly, it totally is.
With this I always think of airplane mentality. Not sure what I’m talking about? You can learn more here, but—in a nutshell—it’s about putting your oxygen mask on first. For many of us, especially as women, we help others before helping ourselves, which is why the things we do for ourselves—like our self-care—starts to feel like an extra to-do list obligation on top of an already full schedule. I get! However, your work? Your relationships? They require the most engaged version of you. And engagement requires energy. As my friend Kacia always says, you cannot pour from an empty cup. In an older podcast episode, she said “fill your cup to the point of overflow so that you can pour into others from the excess.”
#2
It’s about what you need to STOP doing as much as (if not MORE than)
what you need to START doing.
This might be a helpful way to think about the 5 types of self-care I just presented. I know I gave tips for what each of these types of self-care might look like, but we can simplify everything and get the same benefits simply by creating a “stop doing” list, as opposed to a to-do list.
For example, for physical self-care, you could simply stop sitting all day! You might say, “how is that simple?” but it really is! If you were to simply get up every hour from your desk and move, even in small ways, that would help you take better physical care of yourself.
Other examples:
Physical self-care: It could be to stop sitting all day. It could be to stop staying up late. It could be about stopping having a glass of wine each and every night.
Mental self-care: Stop spending all your time on social media and replace that with reading an article or playing on a brain-stimulating app like Lumosity or Happify.
Emotional self-care: Stop shoving down all of your emotions all the time, giving yourself more permission to feel them in real-time.
Spiritual self-care: Stop ignoring your gut. When you feel a gut feeling, try to figure out what it is and what it’s telling you. That simple act is going to help you get more in touch with your intuition.
Social self-care: Stop spending all your time alone OR, on the contrary, stop saying “yes” to everything
#3
Start Simple.
In a nutshell—don’t try to overhaul your whole life from the get-go. One of the biggest things I see people do wrong with damn near everything—burnout, goals, career, etc.—is that they overwhelm themselves by doing too much too soon and they’re never able to find their footing.
I know that I just gave you 5 different types of self-care, but I’m also not asking you to incorporate all 5 types right now if you have none. The best thing you can do is to prioritize. Which type of self-care do you need the most right now? Start with that one. Then, once you’ve integrated that, incorporate the next kind. It’s about stacking things on top of each other, not about overhauling everything from the start and I think that’s really important here.
The biggest things I see high-achievers doing is that they get so gung ho about making a change that they try to do everything at once and that my friend is a recipe for disaster! Why? Because all it does is lead to overwhelm. And it sets you up for failure! It’s like trying to go straight to riding a bike without even riding a bike with training wheels yet. Ya, you can figure it out, but you’re going to be setting yourself up for a lot of scrapes and bruises along the way. Unnecessary scrapes and bruises at that because you didn’t need to make things so hard for yourself!
A great tip here is to start with something easy. Momentum is motivating so if you can give yourself one self-care habit that seems like an easy domino to topple it’s going to make all the difference in the world in regard to your motivation to topple the next domino.
#4
Try to avoid treating self-care as another goal.
I’ll call myself out on the fact that there have been several instances where I’ve set self-care as a goal. I like to think that it’s more of an intention to prioritize that, but I’ve fallen victim to making those goals around weight or inches lost. I’m a huge proponent of making your self-care more capability-focused, but regardless, that’s not what self-care should be about.
Self-care isn’t a destination you’re going to arrive at or something you check off the list. My goal for you? Is that it becomes a part of your lifestyle. It becomes something “you just do” as a part of your life as opposed to things you check off your to-do list.
Because when you get to that point, your self-care will serve as a foundation that enables you to be the best version of yourself and that enables you to achieve more with less burnout. Where self-care doesn’t feel like just another thing on your to-do list. That’s what approaching self-care like this will give you…