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You've heard the cringey saying, "you are what you eat" followed by the mental finger wag that prompts a virtue signal of fueling your body with healthy balanced meals. Yeah, you know the one... *insert eye roll*
While this is a key component of self-care and healthy living, there is so much more that contributes to our overall health than just nutrition.
When we consciously care for ourselves intentionally it nurtures our personal needs so that we are able to show up for ourselves first, then other people and finally to fulfill the responsibilities in our lives.
But many of us were not taught self-care as children or young adults. Many of us were taught to abandon ourselves and instead serve others first. It's twisted.
If this resonates with you, I'm inviting you to dive deeper into a self-starter's guide to securing healthy self-care habits in a program I've created called the Selfcare Checklist.
The Selfcare Checklist is a program for people who:
A. Don't know what self-care is
B. Are not sure how to start self-caring and/or
C. Feel guilty about taking time to care for self, daily.
I've learned through creating this program that self-care is not selfish- it's essential to our daily vitality. Yet, none of us seem to know how to do it. I know I didn't, so I decided to go on a journey to learn how to take care of me- ALL of me. Every layer of me. Inner-child me. Mama me. Mind, Body and Soul me.
The Selfcare Checklist contains all of the tools that helped me to create a solid self-care practice for myself.
By design, the first step is to take an audit of your current state or lifestyle and through self-assessment determine an area of focus with the help of dream casting.
Where do you want to see yourself in 3 weeks, 3 months and 3 years' time? The Selfcare Checklist guides you through this.
Next, we assess our daily and weekly actions to determine actions to eliminate and new actions to swap in that are healthier habits.
This method will lead to breaking up with the unhealthy existing habits that are no longer working for you anymore or that is keeping you stuck putting yourself last.
The Selfcare Checklist also contains tips and tricks on creating more time and energy, gratitude journaling prompts and more.
I had one client decide she'd like to focus on reducing her toxic load by eliminating the chemicals in her daily lifestyle products. She decided to start with one lifestyle product, toothpaste. She sought out a cleaner alternative with my guidance and she applied the ditch and switch approach. Eventually, over time she was able to swap out 8 products for healthier versions and she continues to swap out more and more as she can.
This ditch and switch approach attached to the yearning to feel great, sleep great, hold boundaries and just be... happier, lighter every day- is a recipe for success.
The Selfcare Checklist is a resource that will guide you through the importance of self-care by illuminating these pillars of health:
affirmations
and of course there, is my spin, on how this is all considered self-care sprinkled in.
The Selfcare Checklist lets your intuition guide you, it'll intuitively lean you into creating a plan unique to you. The checklist will help you illuminate goals while encouraging you to listen to your body.
I am available to guide you where you'd like me to. I am here to help! You take this as deep as you'd like to and you establish where I can support you. Some benefit from self-guided, others want to be guided through with my support.
The Selfcare Checklist encourages us to trust our body, understanding it knows what it needs- listening to it and letting intuition pull us. Selfcare in this way leads to feeling fulfilled- grounded, and safe in our skin. Not in a toxic positive way but in a "I feel healthy & strong" kind of way.
This Selfcare Checklist will show you how to implement new self-care habits while eliminating the unhealthy ones that you want to ditch fore-evaaaa.
Let's get you to the top of your daily checklist.
Let's dive further. How do we set ourselves up for success?
We Learn The Tools.
A popular method to build new habits is the 21/90 rule. In order to create a new habit, you must commit to your goal for 21 straight days (3 weeks).
After 21 days, this goal becomes a habit. Once you have established the habit, you must follow through for ninety days.
After 3 weeks and then for ninety days, this goal becomes a permanent lifestyle change.
So how do we use the 21/90 rule?
Starting the day off with a glass of water with lemon is a simple goal and a healthy way to start the day- the kicker here is to ask ourselves, "what if we shifted our focus onto something that improves our quality of life every single day?" After 90 days it's become a major enhancement to your health.
2. Start & End Your Day With A Positive Mindset
I like to consume personal development material- yes self-help books-HA! I've listened to podcasts, TedTalks, and the Audibles. They strangely make me feel alive- so I understand the theory.
But what I was left with was a big pile of advice and no idea how to actually apply it to simple action steps.
I found there was a big gap between theory and practice, so I started small.
As it turns out, 5-minutes are all I needed to start my day feeling consciously ready. I mean grounded and present. Listening to understand not just react. Do you know that feeling?
In fact, it was the simplest way I've found to boost a positive mindset and promote patience. Patience with self and others.
A gratitude journal entry has me skipping about with a pep in my step, a smile on my face, and a lightness in my soul.
THIS. This is self-care. The work that takes care of self.
I have yet to coach someone who says they want to feel cranky, impatient, exhausted, overwhelmed, or heavy.
Insiders Tip: Start Small. Write down one positive thing every morning.
What are you grateful for today?
What small victory did you have yesterday?
Or with your kids? (my kids are next level right now)
Soooo sassy.
Maybe you put cucumber on your deli meat sandwich and feel good about it.
Or you picked a few tomatoes from your garden.
Whatever it is, write it down.
Write something down every morning for 21 days, and then continue to do that for ninety days- YES, 3 months! This is what will create the lasting habits you set out to create.
If you really want to amp up an uplifted mood, write down one more thing that you are grateful for at the end of the day.
What was something amazing that happened?
Maybe something terrible happened to you so you got vulnerable and leaned into the horrible hard feelings and came away with the lesson- or maybe the lesson is still processing...
Start and end your days with gratitude- I'm in this step right now and I promise you will see increased lightness and vivid optimism.