Sacred Self Care
to balance your mind, body, and soul
“Don't buy the lie that a full schedule means productivity or holiness or achievement.”
This is the second part of my January Series: Powerful Routines for a Balanced Life. Today we will focus on creating a healthy daily self-care routine. I hope you enjoy it!
Table of Contents
In Search Of Hygge
💠 When was the last time you scheduled time for yourself?
💠 When was the last time you enjoyed life’s simple pleasures?
💠 When was the last time you experienced a relaxing stillness, pleasant warmth, cozy atmosphere?
💠 When was the last time you arranged a small gathering with loved ones (except during holidays)?
💠 When was the last time you felt a human BEING, not a human DOING?
Finding The Peace And Stillness Amongst The Madness
Most of us know that we should prioritize self-care but when it comes to practising it suddenly it turns out that we are too busy. Our schedules are insanely overbooked with things that were due yesterday. Our brains are incredibly overloaded by too much irrelevant information because for some strange reason we need to know what exactly is going on halfway around the world. We eat in a hurry because apparently, 20 minutes for a lunch break is long enough not only to chew your food properly but also to notice the smell and taste of the food. We constantly sacrifice our sleep to accomplish more work in a day. We talk through messaging because make a phone call or actually meet someone in person would be a waste of time and we don’t have any. We are extremely stressed and overwhelmed with work, family responsibilities, financial challenges, everyday choices and too much completely irrelevant information that our brain cannot even process properly. When someone asks us when was the last time we were at peace we struggle to remember.
Maybe it’s time to break free from this negative life pattern and feel good again? What do you think? Do you want to feel more like a human BEING than a human DOING again? If your answer is yes, it’s time to implement a consistent self-care routine into your daily life!
“Self-care has become a new priority – the revelation that it’s perfectly permissible to listen to your body and do what it needs.”
Self-Care Manifesto
Any type of healthy routine is made up of clusters of powerful habits that reinforce each other. However, in your self-care routine, these habits don’t necessarily need to be closely related in time or space to form a consistent routine as is the case with morning or evening routine. This means that there can be long gaps in time or even changes in location between the first and the second part of your self-care routine. For instance, meditating at your bedroom and working out at your local gym soon after may sound like a nice idea, but is impracticable. But indulging in delicious hot chocolate and reading a self-improvement book before going to bed it’s not only more practical but also extremely exciting, doesn’t it? So if your favorite self-care rituals don’t have a strong linkage with each other don’t worry, just pick those habits that reinforce each other and implement them at different parts of the day!
And Remeber About Your Self-Care Manifesto:
Keep It SIMPLE
Be CONSISTENT
Enter the PRESENT Moment
Have FUN
Make It COZY
Make It UNIQUE
EXPERIMENT A Little Bit
Have The PLEASURE Of It
20 Benefits Of Self-Care
- Create a healthy relationship with yourself
- Increase Self-Awareness
- Improve Focus & Concentration
- Increase Productivity
- Create Motivation
- Increase Engagement Levels
- Boost Physical & Mental Wellbeing
- Boost Happy Hormones
- Manage Anxiety & Reduce Stress
- Enter Flow State
- Boost Self-Confidence & Self-Esteem
- Feel a Greater Sense of Fulfilment
- Improve Interpersonal Relationships
- Give Yourself a Reason
- Hack Your Brain to Increase Creativity
- Create Work-Life Balance
- Regulate Emotions
- Increase Emotional Happiness
- Fight Chronic Fatigue
- Increase Self-Love
Download Your FREE Printable Workseets & Set Yourself Up for Successful 2020!
Steps In Creating Unique Self-Care Routine
💠 Self-reflect and identity which areas of your life need more attention
💠 Set the right mindset
💠 Choose self-care habits/rituals that you love
💠 Plan and Schedule time for your self-care routine
💠Get inspired but create your own unique and highly personalized self-care routine
💠 Stay Consistent
💠Remain Flexible - adjust, modify or change when you feel it
💠 Measure and track your progress
💠 Acknowledge your achievements
💠 Celebrate Your Success
Address 8 Types Of Self-Care
While creating your self-care routine think of 8 areas of your life where your favorite self-care rituals can be applied so that you can improve your entire life. If you need some inspiration here are my absolutely favorite rituals for every type of self-care:
Grab Your Free Printable 8 Self-Care Types Worksheet here!
Choose Self-Care Activities That You Like
Earlier we’ve been talking about splitting your daily self-care routine into three parts for better results now it’s time to do this!
So grab your free printable worksheet you can find below, split your daily self-care routine into three parts:
- morning
- afternoon
- evening
and add your absolutely favorite self-care rituals/habits to each of them. Remember to choose habits that reinforce each other for creating every part of your daily self-care routine. If you need some inspiration, here are my favorite self-care habits for morning, afternoon and evening part of my self-care routine. Of course, I’m not doing all of those activities every single day because I like to stay flexible and experiment a little bit. And you know what? You can do the same!
Grab Your Free Printable Self-Care Ideas Worksheet here!
Adopt The Right Mindset & Enter The Flow State
Is there any better way to put yourself in a positive headspace and enter the flow state than through a powerful ritual? Just think about it. How doing your favorite activities makes you feel? I bet, it makes you feel great!! That’s why I highly recommend you start your day with a positive morning ritual. Do something that feeds your soul and makes you feel alive soon after you wake up. Engage in an activity that you love doing and you know it will put you in a positive headspace. It can be anything from making a delicious cup of coffee to going for a morning run. But it has to be something that inspires you, motivates you and makes you feel good about yourself. So if the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is reading the news with terrible and depressing headlines you should probably avoid that unless you want to feel depressed, anxious and just awful. Instead, develop a positive morning ritual that will help you start your day in a positive way.
My favorite morning ritual is my morning coffee. Honestly, coffee is the best thing ever. I go to bed and I cannot wait for this cup of coffee in the morning. I wake up and I cannot wait to take that first sip of my morning coffee that puts me in a good mood. Is it an addiction? I don’t know. Maybe. Even if, it’s the greatest addiction ever…
I highly recommend you to create your morning ritual that will help you to start your day with a positive mindset. In case you need some inspiration here are other activities I love to do in the early morning, soon after I open my eyes.
Trust me, a positive morning ritual will change your entire life!
Examples Of Powerful Daily Rituals
- Make yourself the perfect cup of coffee or tea
- Achieve peace of mind with morning meditation
- Gain clarity and increase your self-awareness through journaling
- Set intentions for the day
- Practice positive self-talk looking in the mirror
- Write gratitude notes and put them in your Gratitude jar
- Cultivate relaxation to reduce stress
- Practice Mindfulness exercise
- Engage in physical activity
- Go for a walk and connect with nature
- Read or watch an inspiring content
- Unleash your creativity through contact with nature
- Prepare a nutritious meal
Plan Like A BOSS & Schedule Like A CEO
Creating a healthy and balanced self-care routine requires putting time and effort into every sphere of your life so that you can improve your health and wellbeing. Because if you focus only on some of the areas of your life while completely neglecting the others you won’t be able to create the desired equilibrium through your self-care routine. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to put the same amount of time and effort into all of them. But keep in mind that if you want to create and maintain a healthy self-care routine that will work for you you need to plan ahead and schedule it. You can create your self-care schedule with google calendar, self-care apps or my free printable worksheet that you will find below!
So come on, let’s not waste any more time! It’s time to schedule for success! So grab your free printable worksheet and plan your self-care habits like a BOSS and schedule your self-care rituals like a CEO!
Grab your free printable self-care schedule here!
Track Your Progress
Do you want to create and master your healthy self-care habits? Track them! Measuring and tracking your progress keeps you accountable to your goals. Because let’s face it. Every day is different, motivation is not constant and life is extremely unpredictable. It’s easy to feel extremely excited and insanely motivated at the beginning of creating your new routine. But there’ll be some days when life just sucks… and in such days it will be much harder to find the motivation to practice self-care. But if you keep tracking your self-care habits from the early beginning it will be easier to stay on track with your habits so that you can improve your life.
💠 Notice early signs that a habit is starting
💠 Look for accountability
💠 Be persistent and keep on repeating your new self-care routine to make it stick
💠 Celebrate both small wins and big victories
Best Habit-Tracking Apps to Help Stick to Your Goals
Build Consistency
They say that practice makes perfect… In my personal opinion practice makes consistent not perfect. No one is perfect. We are all perfectly imperfect and that’s the real beauty of life. Perfection does not exist so there’s no point in pursuing it. What you need in creating a healthy self-care routine that will work for you is Consistency & Self-Discipline. So ditch the perfectionism, embrace “good enough” and get into a consistent self-care routine right now!
💠 Incorporate self-care rituals into your daily routine
💠 Plan and schedule for success
💠 Measure and track your progress
💠 Use goal & habit tracking apps
💠 Identify your weaknesses and challenge them
💠 Challenge your negative self-talk and self-limiting beliefs
💠 Celebrate your big achievements & small victories
💠 Remember that more consistency leads to more achievements
Remember That:
- Action creates Habits
- Habits create Consistency
- Consistency gives you Results
Use Self-Care Apps
Incorporate self-care rituals into your routine with these self-care Apps
- Shine - Motivational texts (Android / iOS)
- Calm Meditation and Sleep Stories (Android; iOS)
- Happify: for Stress & Worry (iOS and Android)
- Headspace (Android; iOS)
- Breathe2Relax (Android; iOS)
- Anxiety Reliever (Android; iOS)
- Self-help for Anxiety Management (iOS)
- Sanvello (Android; iOS)
- Worry Watch (iOS)
- Rain Rain (Android; iOS)
- Panic Relief (Android; iOS)
- SAM App (Android; iOS)
- What’s Up? - A Mental Health App (iOS and Android)
- MoodTools - Depression Aid (iOS and Android)
- MindShift CBT - Anxiety Canada (iOS and Android)
- Self-help for Anxiety Management (iOS and Android)
- Happier (iOS)
- Smiling Mind Meditation for all ages (iOS and Android)
- NOCD: Effective care for OCD (iOS)
- CBT Thought Diary
#1 Free Mood & Thought Journal (iOS and Android)
Stay Flexible
Once you create your daily self-care routine remember that you don’t have to obey it religiously. You can always improve, modify or completely change your self-care routine by adding new rituals or removing the existing ones. It all depends on you! The whole point of having a self-care routine is to help you de-stress, unwind, recharge. That’s why you should focus your energy on positive things and engage in pleasurable activities that make you genuinely happy and avoid the things that you don’t like only because they work for others. Remember it’s all about improving your self-love and boosting your happy hormones. So observe others, get inspired, try many different things, experiment a little bit but do the things that make you happy!
Download Your FREE Printable Successful Goal Achievement Worksheets!
Best Posts Achieving Goals:
- The Ultimate Night Routine For Better Sleep And Productive Mornings HERE
- 6 Self-Improvement Habits To Adopt Before 2020 HERE
- Get into the Habit of Being Seriously Organized Before 2020. HERE
- 8 Simple Steps to Set Yourself Up for a Successful 2020 HERE
- Powerful and smart ways to manage your time efficiently and effectively HERE
- 5 steps to success in achieving your goals HERE
- The ultimate way to overcome procrastination and become a highly productive person HERE
- 10 powerful life-changing healthy morning rituals HERE
- 6 Simple Ways To Live A Healthier Lifestyle HERE
- The science of motivation HERE
- 10 simple ways to bring mindfulness into your daily life HERE
- 10 powerful habits to boost your confidence HERE
Download Your Free Printable Self-care Workbook by clicking on the photo below!
P.S.
Stay Positive
Be Mindful
and create self-care routine that will work for you!
xo Kate
Woooooow, another incredible post - I love the printable, the manifesto, the tips on those self-care apps too. Amaaaaaazing! Will share this over on Twitter. Very nicely done, Kate!!xx
THANK You, CAZ!! I’m glad you like it!! I must admit that I absolutely love making printables 😁 Take care and have a wonderful day!! 😉
My morning habit is my breakfast. Fruit, yogurt, toast and then coffee. It’s about 25 minutes and it’s always the most relaxing part of my day. And almost always at home.
First nutritious breakfast and then coffee, I love it! That’s a perfect way to start a day! Morning rituals are so powerful! Take care and have a wonderful day!!! 😉😀