The Self Care Strategy that Helped me the Most

You may be reading this blog wondering what happened with my 120 days to reach my goal. I chose to let it go to focus on my own self care. It wasn’t an easy decision but I’m glad I made it and I trust that it will happen when the time is right.

Instead I decided to share the self care strategy that has helped me the most because it’s adaptable, it incorporates several elements and we can all adapt it to suit our daily lives. Let’s face it, it’s usually our daily lives that get in the way of us looking after ourselves. And if we really want things to be different we have to find a way. As the great Jim Rohn said “For things to change, you have to change”.  You have to become a priority .. I would say your number one priority but that might be too much to contemplate at the moment but that’s where I would love for you to get to. Just for now decide to make YOU one of your top 3 priorities

Many years ago I heard about a book called “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. You may have read it. If not I highly recommend it. In the book Hal describes how his desire for success in his business after some serious setbacks, including a serious car accident, led him to make time for personal development/ self care, call it what you will. For him this involved getting up an hour earlier than the rest of his family to fit in an hour for what he termed his “LIFE SAVERS”. Now the getting up early part of this was not something that I wanted to do and in fact didn’t need to do. After all I don’t have a full time job or business and I don’t have family living at home. And I value my sleep. However I know that many of you reading this may have either or both of the above. So why not reframe these activities as self care breaks throughout your day.

So what are they? The LIFE SAVERS are as follows:-

Silence: This could be a period of meditation, walking alone, sitting still in silence, whatever works for you. It is so calming. Whatever you do, focus in on yourself and your breathing for a period of 5 minutes. There are various apps like the calm app that can help you with this

Affirmations: Our subconscious is full of negative thought and beliefs we have about ourselves that we don’t even know are there. We just believe these to be facts. For example many of us, me included, believe or have believed that we are not good enough. Somehow that became embedded in our subconscious and became the truth as far as we were concerned. I want to tell you now that this is far from the truth and whatever else you believe about yourself, the time has come to reframe those beliefs into something that are more empowering

Affirmations are phrases you repeat to yourself to change those negative subconscious beliefs. For example one of mine is “I am good enough, I am worth it, I am a winner”. It feels so good to say it and to say it with energy. So start to notice those negative beliefs and start to change them to something more helpful. It won’t happen straight away but over time those thoughts really  can be changed. And you can say them to yourself in the shower or while you’re exercising, for example. Youi don’t have to find yet more time.

Visualisation: Spend a few minutes in silence visualising yourself achieving your goal or living the life you want to live. Where are you? Who are you with? And create a vision board that you can look at every day to reinforce it. Your brain will start to look at opportunities to help you get there. Believe me when I tell you this is not just “woo”. There is a part of your brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) that comes in to play here. Look it up!

Exercise: What do you love to do that involves moving your body? For me it’s a daily (well nearly) Pilates routine, but I also aim to walk, garden or swim daily. For you it may be something different. Choose what you love, that way you will stick with it. Or try different things and discover how you and your body love to move. It may be dancing round your living room to your current favourite song. Whatever it is you’ll be moving and that will raise your endorphins, your feel good hormones and you’ll feel good. Simple! Exercise benefits your physical and your mental health.

Reading: Spend some time every day reading a minimum of a good personal development book every day. I created this habit over 10 years ago and, honestly, it has been transformational for me. I am more confident, I feel more worthy, I care more about myself. And all of that means that I am better able to help and serve others. I have read countless books over the intervening years .. just e mail me for recommendations. But you would do well to start with “The Miracle Morning.”

Scribing: Better known to us as writing. There are all sorts of ways you can use this time. I would always recommend writing “gratitudes”. A daily habit of gratitude can be life changing. I’ve found that however bad life can feel at this very moment, noticing what you have to be grateful for can make so much difference. It could be the sun shining, water in your taps, being warm, the bird on the bird feeder. I could go on but you get my drift. You can get apps to help with journalling or you can just use a journal to ponder questions you have in your head for example. And just see the magic that can come out of your pen. It does need to be hand written, not typed. There is something more powerful about the brain hand connection.

So there you have it. I definitely need to refresh my morning routine and implementing some self care breaks into my day sounds perfect.

My advice to you is start small, maybe with one activity and build up. If you start to do it all at once it might seem overwhelming and there is enough overwhelm in our lives as it is isn’t there, without adding more. Tailor it to suit you and your needs and your life. Trust me you will feel better!