Self care is one of those concepts that you think you fully grasp… until you realize that you’ve been telling everyone else to do it, while you’re sitting there overwhelmed, exhausted, and looking for a way out. Yep—even in your very own business that you built with freedom and fulfillment at the forefront.
Learning how to prioritize self care is a big topic for us this month as we are deep into several website launches, juggling freelance commitments, and desperately trying to honor the swirling of ideas in our heads for all those other dreams that suddenly seem so out of reach, because who has the time?
In the past couple years, I’ve worked with lots of wellness brands and service providers, pretty much all who have a mission of teaching overworked, burned out women not only how to prioritize self care but that it is perfectly reasonable and actually essential to do so.
While trends are intrinsically hyperbolic, deep down, at their core, they do often stem from some universal truth—some problem that artists/designers/thought leaders seek to solve within their work. Which is why I think what my clients and collaborators do has purpose, despite often feeling lost in within the echo chamber that social media.
So here I am, offering my two cents on taking care of yourself… a topic that feels done to death and yet is so damn hard to bring to fruition. It’s inspired by the women I know in wellness that are the few I’ve seen actually prioritize self care—that is, rest, rejuvenation, and overall wellbeing—in their businesses and beyond.
How to prioritize self care (in your business and life)
Get comfortable putting yourself first
You have to be comfortable with the fact that you deserve to prioritize yourself. This means challenging limiting beliefs. It means inner work. It also means ultimately being OK with the fact that a colleague—or worse—someone close to you—may pass judgment. To make self care a priority you have to know that YOU should be your priority. And you certainly can’t judge other women who make themselves one too.
Make it ritual
Once you’ve gotten past society’s absurd assertion that women shouldn’t prioritize themselves, you are ready to incorporate it into your daily life! My favorite advice for going about it is to create your own self care routine, even if it’s just twenty or thirty minutes, that you can do each day. And don’t worry, we all fall off—I’m guessing it will take me years to truly prioritize this daily routine above all else, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
My current ritual is pretty simple: a morning routine where I don’t check my phone until I’ve had “me time”. Coffee and my journal, and if I’m feeling anxious I will do some deep breathing or tapping. (That part I need to work on, as its most transformative.) If I’m feeling inspired, I’ll open my laptop not for clients, but for my own writing or Pinterest-binge. It’s quite the mood booster!
Lit Rituals, a friend of ours who enlisted us for Shopify help, handcrafts each of their products with this mission. Everything for sale on their site from altar candles to herbal smokes to bath bombs is made to encourage you to slow down and look inward—but do it in a way that feels good to you. I love this because it means that your ritual can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it’s this period of time, each day, that you’re not rushing to do anything for anyone else or with any expectation. Ahhh.
Do it long enough to recognize why it’s essential
Once you start to regularly prioritize self care, you’ll see the benefits. Not to turn you off, but it’s essentially a new health routine. It’s intimidating at first, and easy as hell to fall off of, but once you’re in the groove the results are clear: putting yourself first truly does make you feel better. And it revitalizes you enough to be better in your relationships, and more inspired in your work. The key lies in points 1 and 2 above, though, you have to believe you deserve it, and you have to find a way to do it that isn’t a total drag, but something you actually truly want to do.
Do you know how to prioritize self care? Which of the three areas above trips you up the most?
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