The No B.S. Guide to Everyday Self-Care

Self-care is more than just a face mask on the weekends and brunch with the gals. Self-care is the path towards sanity, clear thoughts, and long-term happiness. Without an intentional reset, you’ll be battling burnout and wondering why you never feel better.

With both men and women suffering from burnout regularly, especially in competitive first-in-last-out corporate environments, self-care has never been more crucial. Not only for our sanity but for success!

The secret to effective self-care is to prevent burnout before it even starts, so you stay on your A-game longer. Maybe you won’t master this right away but every step forward is one step closer to living a No B.S. life.

Set boundaries

Knowing where your stress comes from helps to play a role in the grand scheme of things. Remember, the goal is to prevent burnout altogether. If work is your usual stressor, think about why that is.

Do you stay late to please an overbearing, impossible-to-please boss? Do you take on more than you should just because “they’re family”? If you’re living to please others, how can you expect to please yourself?

Setting boundaries for yourself helps you to figure out when to put your foot down. It’s an important step towards preventing burnout and contributes to your daily self-care.

Make time for yourself

With boundaries in place, you free up space and energy to make time for yourself! This doesn’t mean abandoning your duties as an adult, parent, spouse, etc. What it means is that you’re aware that you need time with yourself... and then actually making the time.

Maybe you’ll meditate and sit with your thoughts, maybe you’ll write, read, play video games, research a new hobby, visit with friends, or plan a mini vacation to that cool campsite you’ve been curious about.

The point is to do whatever the hell you want without feeling guilty! That’s the beauty of making time for yourself. It’s yours and no one can take that away.

Rediscover yourself

You already know what you like, why bother exploring further, right? Well, if you’re fine with plateauing, I guess that’s okay, but you wouldn’t be reading this if you were. The best way to get to know yourself is to make a conscious effort in doing so!

What do you desire? What do you crave? What have you always wanted to try but were too scared or insecure to try?

It might take a little bravery on your part but discovering the hidden parts of ourselves is what keeps us exuberant about life and happy with who we are. In other words, it’s worth it!

Follow good energy

Have you ever spent time with someone and felt like the life has been sucked out of you? Yeah, let’s think twice about giving those kinds of people our time and attention, okay?

This is one of those things in your life that you can actually control, so make the effort to take charge and surround yourself with people who aren’t going to put you down or patronize you.

Instead, keep those who build you up, inspire you, and support you as close as possible. Self-care is all about you and “you” are directly affected by the company you keep. Think about that!

Build your sanctuary

Whether you want to meditate, rock out in your undies, sit with a mask and some wine, or exercise your stress away- creating the space to suit the mood is half the battle.

Have you ever noticed that cleaning your home just makes things feel lighter? That’s because you’re taking in the clean, positive flow of energy that you’ve created simply by transforming your space.

Now take that up a notch and create a space where you can rejuvenate your mind, body, and soul. Whatever inspires you, calms you, and makes you happy (which you learn as you make more time for yourself), reflect that in your own, personal space.

Overall...

Effective self-care starts with self-awareness. Specifically, being aware of what causes stress, how you react to it, and how you can manage it. Taking charge of your life can be hard to do when you don't have something to focus on, so finding that rhythm you need is a great first step, whatever that looks like to you.

Unfortunately, you can’t prevent stress from happening but you can use these tips to practice daily self-care. Keep in mind that self-care is more than a trend, it's a lifestyle! That means making self-examination and exploration a consistent and necessary practice in order to recharge and conquer the world!