January can be tough. It’s a long month, Christmas is not for another 11 months, its cold, the days are still short…you get the picture.
We've talked about self care before and it can be helpful for your mental, physical, emotional wellbeing to consider developing your own self-care plan.
An effective self-care plan should be tailored to your life and your needs. It needs to be something created by you, for you.
Customizing your own self-care plan can act as a preventative measure to make sure that you don't get overwhelmed, overstressed, and #burned out.
Assess which areas of your life need some more attention and self-care. Repeat this every now and then. As your situation changes, your self-care needs are likely to shift too.
As you are building your self-care plan, the following steps from verywellmind.com can be helpful:
• Assess your needs: Make a list of the different parts of your life and major activities that you engage in each day.
• Consider your stressors: Think about the aspects of these areas that cause #stress and consider some ways you might address that stress.
• Devise #self-care strategies: Think about some activities that you can do that will help you feel better in each of these areas of your life. For example, closing and hiding away the laptop at the end of day, so you are not tempted to answer emails in the evening.
• Plan for challenges: When you discover that you're neglecting a certain aspect of your life, create a plan for change.
• Take small steps: You don't have to tackle everything all at once. Identify one small step you can take.
• Schedule time to focus on your needs: Even when you feel like you don't have time to squeeze in one more thing, make #selfcare a priority. When you're caring for all aspects of yourself, you'll find that you are able to operate more effectively and efficiently.
Photo by Agnieszka Cymbalak on Unsplash