Habits and Self Care

“Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.” – Octavia Butler

Hey Goal Sisters! I want to talk about how habits can help you maintain your self care needs. I know how important self care is as a busy woman and mom. Some moms feel mom-guilt doing anything for themselves. I am at a place in my motherhood journey that I do not feel guilty about taking time for myself. Why? Because I am intentional about showing up well in almost all other areas of my life. I spend quality and intentional time with my closest family and friends, so I know that it is ok to take some time for myself. And I encourage you to do the same.

What Is Self Care?

Self care is defined as taking an action to preserve one’s health. Self care looks different for each individual. For me, waking up at 5am, doing gratitude, and running are all things that I require in my daily life now. Sleeping a solid 8 hours and drinking all my water is also self care. Drinking water helps my wake up, my body needs it for running in this humidity and heat, and it clears your system out of toxins. These things serve different purposes for me, but they all work together to make me the version of myself I want to be. I have my mental, physical, and emotional health covered with these actions. And I can add more if I need to.

Examples of Self Care

• Getting a good night’s rest, actually sleeping, not going to bed at 9 and scrolling your phone for 2 hours
• Exercise, yoga, mediation
• Eating clean foods for most of your meals
• Talking with good friends
• Date nights
• Reading a book
• Relaxing in a bath or spa
• Planning your week to reduce overwhelm
• Asking for help from a family member so you can have an hour alone at the grocery store
• Doing a puzzle or craft
• Journaling
• Talking to a therapist
• Trying a new hobby

Why Habits Matter

A habit is a practice that is hard to give up. A habit is something that becomes congruent with your daily activities or who you are. In order to take care of yourself in a positive way that you desire, you have to develop a habit to keep yourself going. You have to do the action even when you don’t feel like doing it. Being motivated will not keep you accountable to your habit. Being disciplined will. It also helps to know your why. Your meaning for doing the habit. Knowing your why will give you the encouragement to keep going when the day comes that you don’t want to continue a new habit. It takes time, patience, and determination.

If you are struggling with a negative habit, try and add one good habit. Don’t completely give up your negative habit right away. Because you will think you can’t do it. You can! Change your mindset. You have to prove to yourself that you can maintain a positive habit for say 30 days, to give yourself the motivation to keep at it.

Start Adding in Positive Habits to Your Routine

Say you want to lose 10 pounds. This is something I think every woman has struggled with at some point in their lives. Instead of cutting out every single bad food or drink that you consume, add in one good habit. If you try and quit drinking the soda, and eating the fast food, and snacking on lemon Oreos at any hour during the day, well you won’t stick with it for very long because it isn’t sustainable, and you will begin a shame spiral the second you grab that Oreo.

Instead, make a small goal to drink 60 ounces of water a day, and prep your lunch for work say 3 days a week. Small, attainable goals that you know you can do for 30 days. Once you have proved to yourself that you can drink water and meal prep 3 lunches, then add in a salad with your dinner. Now you’ve added another positive habit, and you’re 60 days in. Now you have really proved that you are a badass, and you can choose to give up something or keep adding good habits. The thing with those positive choices, the negative habits are easier to let fall to the wayside almost effortlessly. The choice to go for a small walk with your water and salad, all go together. Call someone you care about on your walk or enjoy alone time in your head. Now you are adding in some mental self care.

My Habit and Self Care Cycle

My journey to habits and self care has been a short one really, although it feels long to me. I started digging into personal development in 2019. Some very early and easy habits included drinking half my body weight in ounces of water, eating a daily salad, reading related books, figuring out how to budget, and beginning to run again. I started out by making a small goal to run one entire mile. Then, I upped it to two. I remember the feeling I felt when I had ran a full 5 miles without stopping. I felt incredible and unstoppable.

I drink the water so I can run the mile. I go to bed early so I can wake up early rested enough to work on my projects. I complete a monthly budget so I can pay off my student loan. I eat the salad because my body needs some clean foods to perform better. I am thankful for small moments, so I train my brain to search for those moments throughout the day. I plan my goals out so that I can accomplish what I want to. Now in 2021, all those pieces are a huge part of me, and what make up my day.

We all want to be a better version of ourselves, but it doesn’t happen over night. If I look back on the last 10 years of my life, I have only started to make real traction towards a dream or a goal in the last two years. Why is that?

Intention. Effort. Doing the work.

That is the big secret to anything you want to accomplish. None of those words say easy or effortless. Making changes in your life isn’t easy. It’s bound to come with some growing pains, and some comments from loved ones in your life. But if it matters to you, then you get up early, drink the smoothie, do the workout, read the book, apply for the job, create the thing, or whatever it is that you want to do. Then the next morning, you do the same thing. Again and again. Until it becomes a habit. Then, it becomes who you are.

Cheers Goal Sisters. Lets do hard things together.

Alicia