While you are scheduling things on your calendar – reports due, date nights with your spouse, play dates for your children and the like, be sure to take schedule time to take care of yourself. Spend time improving yourself in areas that are important to you. Spend time doing things that make you feel better. Spend time reading a book just for the fun of it. It doesn’t matter what it is, just spend time taking care of yourself.
Keep in mind that there is a difference between taking care of yourself, aka self-care and ignoring your responsibilities. If you exercise self-care and it means your children don’t eat or your house doesn’t ever get cleaned, there is something wrong. That is not the way it is supposed to work. The goal is to make self-care aka taking care of yourself a part of your daily life, like going to work and caring for your family.
The next time you are upset because you have spent the day working and caring for your family and have spent no time caring for yourself, remember that it is your life, you can make it what you want it to be. Take out your calendar right now and find a time to practice self-care. I know you are busy and you have a million things to do. But do it anyway. If you say there is no room in your schedule, carve out 5 minutes at the start or end of your day to spend time taking care of yourself. If you look at your calendar and you say no matter how hard you look you cannot find the time to take care of yourself, you have a problem. The problem is that you are doing too many things and something needs to go. Period. It is not negotiable. It is not debatable. It is not optional. You must make time in your schedule for taking care of yourself.
So, the question for you this serene day is, what type of self-care are you going to practice today?
If you would like to read more articles about showing yourself some love, check out the following articles.
Job Search – A Chance to Compliment Yourself
It is wonderful to go on a job search because it is a chance to compliment yourself. It is often a stressful thing to look for a new job. If you have been looking for a job for an extended time without success, it may hurt your self-esteem. However, you should put all feelings of doubt, lack of qualification and lack of worth out of your mind. Looking for a job is a great time to look at yourself through rose-colored glasses, seeing the best you have to offer the world and potential employers.
Love Yourself – Happy You, Happy Family
You can find serenity in learning to show yourself some love. I speak with many women on a daily basis. Women who do amazing and incredible things. They are bloggers, business owners, mothers, executives, teachers, marketers, librarians, just all kinds of women from all walks of life. They are so different in so many ways, yet at the same time, they have so much in common. One thing they all recognize is the need to start treating themselves as nicely as they treat others.
First – Love Yourself
You can find serenity in learning to love yourself first. Everyone has heard the expression, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” The second part of that statement in many ways is easier for many people. It seems to be common sense to be nice to others. People understand being courteous to others – holding doors, not interrupting, giving another the best that one has to offer. In most homes there is a guest bedroom, guest towels and other special niceties for others. No one ever thinks of this as unusual. It seems to be common sense that one should be nice to guests, visitors and others. Why then, do so many people have such a hard time showing themselves love?
1 2
Well said! I have not always been good about self-care but recently I have seen the poor effect on my health. I am committed to doing better. Thanks for the reminder!
🙂
Traci
I agree that charity does start at home and I often forget that that means me!
I share the parenting and household responsibilities with my wife. Hope it sets a good example for my son and daughter about mutual respect and responsibility among the sexes.
Amen to this post. You are good to no one unless you take care of yourself.
This has been my focus this year. I am really focusing on self-care
wow this really hit home as I never used to think of myself. Recently I changed that though and am a better person now because of it 😉
I need to get better at this. Often I forget to take care of myself.
In theory I know you’re right. In real life, it’s so hard to carve that time to make yourself first for something. I’m getting a tad bit better but could def. use more help.
I try to take time for myself, it makes me a happier mom and wife for sure!
Yes women tend to put themselves last in line….always the need of other before themselves. It is important that they take care of themselves as well.
It’s so important to remember to take care of yourself. Unfortunately, most of us put ourselves last. This is a great reminder.
You are so right. We have to spend more time taking care of ourselves. This is sometimes hard to remember in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
I have learned this one the hard way. Instinctively I put everyone in front of me and it wasn’t until I almost cracked that I realized that I had no more to pour out. Nothing to give at all so I had to take a week away with a girl friend and pour into myself and it gave me what I needed to be able to go back and give to them. Now I know better and I take time for me every single day.
I really do try to take good care of myself and make some me time, too! Both things are so important.!