How to be consistent with your self care

This is a guest post.

Self care is incredibly important in our day-to-day lives and general well-being. Especially this year when life is far from normal and has had such a huge impact on our mental health. Self care is something I’ve dedicated a lot of time to over the last few years; finding what works, what doesn’t, different types how to incorporate it into my life and also writing about it to hopefully help others who struggle with practising self care.

Which I know a lot of people do. It’s sad to say but sometimes we really do need to be REMINDED to look after ourselves! With life being so hectic and busy all the time, self care is unfortunately sometimes at the bottom of our priority list.

But let’s be realistic for a second. A lot of us don’t have time for hours and days of elaborate self care. We can’t just drop everything and head to a spa for the weekend or decide to take a day off work just because we fancy staying in bed and watching Netflix.

That’s not how life works. So trying to fit unrealistic self care into a realistic routine is just never going to work. In order to be consistent with your self care, you need to be realistic as well. So today I wanted to share some of my top tips on how to be consistent with your self care:

Find what works for you

There’s so much content out there now about how to practice self care, which is great. I have many pieces of content around that topic myself. And whilst these posts offer a lot of great suggestions, that’s all they are – suggestions. It’s not a be-all and end-all blueprint for everyone. Because we all need very different things.

To be consistent with your self care, you need to find something that works for YOU, instead of trying to keep on at something that other people are telling you to do. Put it this way; having a relaxing bubble bath isn’t going to work for you if you don’t like getting wet. And you’re not going to be consistent either.

Add it into your to-do list

This is something that I do and I’ve found it really helps. Especially as I’m a busy person and have the tendency to work and work and work and not give myself enough downtime sometimes. So actually writing my self care activities on my to-do list motivates me to do them even more. Because we all love that ticking things off a to-do list feeling, don’t we?

Save for later!

Journal it out

If you struggle to be consistent with your self care BUT you know how good you feel afterwards and are aware of the positive benefits you get from, then this will be a helpful point for you. Sometimes, it’s just laziness that stops us from being consistent with our self care. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re all lazy sometimes. It’s just human nature.

But you’ll be aware that the more you do something, the easier it is to do. So once you’ve found those self care activities that work for you, try journalling after you do them. Write about how you feel and what benefits you’ve gained from those activities. And the next time you’re feeling lazy and want to skip your self care, get out that journal and remind yourself why you do it.

Get an accountability partner

Ask a friend, a family member or your partner to hold you accountable for consistently practising self care. Tell them when / what you do and ask them to check in on you so you can tell them whether you have or haven’t been consistent. Although self care and how you practice it is ultimately up to you and only you, this can be a good tip to help with the consistency issue.

Don’t beat yourself up

Look, we all falter. There will be days for ALL of us when it just isn’t going to happen and the absolute last thing you want to do is get your running shoes on or roll out the Yoga mat or spend an hour in the kitchen making a healthy dinner. That’s. Okay.

Consistency is great, yes. But it’s also great to listen to your mind, body and soul and figure out what you REALLY need in that moment. Maybe right then you don’t need your regular form of self care (maybe that’s Yoga or journalling) and what you REALLY need is a Big Mac and chips in front of Desperate Housewives for 5 hours. That’s cool too.

I hope these tips will help you going forward in managing your self care ultimately getting more consistent with practising! With both physical tips and mindset work, you really can alter your frame of mind around self care and make it work with you and for you every single day.

How do you practise self care and ensure you’re consistent with it?

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About the author:

Jenny in a full-time well-being, mindset and personal growth blogger from Essex. She has recently released her first course, Blogging Mindset Mastery, to help bloggers grow their confidence and master their mindset around blogging, comparison, fear of failure and more. She also has two blogging eBooks aimed to help new bloggers grow in the industry.

Blog: www.jennyinneverland.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennymarston_xo
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Blogging Mindset Mastery: https://jenny-marston-s-school.teachable.com/p/blogging-mindset-mastery
eBooks: https://gumroad.com/jennyinneverland