Start & End Your Day With A Little Self Care

Like any new habit, adding self-care into your life can seem kind of tricky. You probably wonder how you’ll manage to find time to do anything extra for yourself, let alone how you’ll actually remember to do these things. One of the best ways to get started is to build your activities into predictable parts of your day. In order to make something a habit, it has to happen regularly. Keep reading, and I’ll show you some tricks to making self-care a routine part of your life.

Make It Personal

I mentioned this yesterday and I want to emphasize it again ... one of the first things that will help you in creating your self-care rituals is to identify activities that are meaningful to you and that you enjoy. This is your practice. You want to be sure it's customized in order to get the most out of it. Consider making a list of things that help you feel relaxed, peaceful, excited or happy. These activities should be able to be done in a short amount of time and ideally they will fit into your life without special equipment or tools. Later on, after you've developed your practice, you can add things in, but in the beginning, Keep It Simple, Sunshine (KISS!) 

.

Fit It In

Figure out the most convenient times during your day when you can indulge in your rituals. Choose times that are already somewhat flexible so that incorporating something new into that space will be less stressful. Usually it would be good to start with morning or evening routines. For example, in the morning you could decide to get up 15 minutes earlier than usual or play around with your nighttime regimen without feeling like you're disrupting your daily schedule too much. You can also designate your lunch break as self-care time, if that seems to work better. In general, having a routine will help ground you and have a ripple effect throughout the day. The pandemic has wreaked havoc with some routines. This is a chance to take back a feeling of control which in itself is a form of self-care. 

Consider activities like writing in a gratitude journal as soon as you wake up or just before bedtime, or both! You might also listen to music that gets your day off to an upbeat or peaceful start while having your morning tea or coffee or smoothies. A walk in the morning, midday, or evening can do wonders for helping you feel centered. You might have to try a couple of times during the day before you hit on your sweet spot, but don't give up until you find that moment to call your own every day. 

Be Flexible

It's best to come up with a routine that works for you and to stick to it. Committing to a particular schedule helps to create a habit and ensures that you get the self-care you need. At the same time, make sure you remember to have self-compassion, too. Some days things happen that are unexpected. For example, if you find yourself thinking you can't take the usual 15-minutes in the morning for gratitude, first stop and ask yourself if that's really true. If it seems like you've just got to get on the move, it's ok. Be easy on yourself. I recommend looking at your calendar for the day and making an appointment with yourself later. If that doesn't work, tomorrow is a new day and you can get back in your groove then. Soon you'll find yourself looking forward to your rituals and taking the time for yourself will be easy.

Getting into the practice of regular self-care doesn’t have to be difficult. Making a few adjustments to your existing schedule can free up some space in your day. Choose things that will refresh you and that are simple in nature will make getting started a breeze.

Sparkles and Love,