What does self-care mean to you? If you’re anything like me, your first thought might be a scoff and thinking, “when am I supposed to do that??”
Whether you work full time at an office, or work from home, whether you are shuffling kids to and from childcare, school, extracurricular activities, birthday parties, and all the other appointments and events they need to attend, or you have no children and are just on the go all the time for other reasons – it’s so easy to get in a routine of hurrying to another destination all the time. It’s easy to get distracted by the daily grind to the point that some of the important things fall by the wayside.
Do you forget to take care of yourself at times?
In grad school, I had a professor share with us “the oxygen mask principal.” Basically, the premise is that if you are on an airplane and the steward is going through the safety procedures spiel, you will be informed that if the cabin pressure drops, oxygen masks will drop from the panels above you. If you are traveling with an elderly person or small child, you put YOUR mask on first, THEN help them. If you try to put an oxygen mask on someone else and they are fighting you out of fear and confusion, or there is any difficulty at all, you are going to run out of oxygen and not be able to help anyone. Put your oxygen mask on first.
With that said, I am fully aware that it’s no easy task. When you’re in the middle of deadlines, maintaining a home, and just trying to make it through each day, finding time for self-care can be a true challenge. In reality, when you are able to step back, take a slow, controlled breath and refocus, it makes a huge difference in your ability to be productive.
Do you get stressed and overwhelmed easily? I’m willing to guess that when you are feeling overwhelmed, you’re not as productive as when you are calm and focused.
You can do a quick google search and come up with lots of “self-care” ideas, such as taking a bubble bath, reading a good book, taking a walk in nature, taking time to color or craft… and these are all great ways to take care of yourself.
On a deeper level, however, to truly take care of yourself, get to the root of the issue. Find balance in the areas that are all out of sorts for you.As I’ve shared before, I believe that the key to overall wellness is spiritual wellness, and we can ask God to reveal to us through the Holy Spirit any unresolved areas that need to be addressed in order to restore balance. As an overview though, to take care of yourself and increase your productivity, I would recommend that you:
1. Place your spiritual wellness at the top of your priorities list. Matthew 6:33 (NIV)
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
2. Through prayer, keeping thought records, speaking with a trusted friend or mentor, learn to identify those core beliefs, or “strongholds” that are interfering with your balance. Do you have that little voice in your head that always tells you that you’re not going to accomplish things? That you’re not enough? Learn to recognize them and deal with them.
3. Set your SMART goals regularly. Know what items on your to do list are highest priority and go from there. Writing down your list and organizing it helps you organize your thoughts and feel less stressed and overwhelmed. Don’t feed into believing that you don’t have time to sit down and write out your to do list. Resist those unhelpful, negative thoughts.
4. Give yourself permission to engage in those self-care activities that are commonly recommended. Include them in your goals!. Balance is the key!
5. Take action. Nodding and telling yourself these are good ideas is not going to cut it. Prove to yourself that you can meet your realistic goals!
Each of these steps has been discussed to some degree here at Every Day Incredible. I encourage you to go back and listen to past episodes, and come discuss them in the Every Day Incredible Ladies facebook group. Does something not make sense to you yet, or is there a topic you’d like to see discussed here? Just let me know! I’m here to help you find Christ-centered life balance. I look forward to hearing from you and want to remind you that there are opportunities every day, so make Every Day Incredible!