Self Care for Goal Setting

Good self care is all about building habits and systems that work for you. For me, self care isn’t spa days and face masks at home. What works for me, is creating time for myself to work on goals that I care about, and setting myself up to succeed in my day-to-day routines. Here’s a list of what I think are important factors to take care of yourself and also make headway on some goals. Scroll to the bottom to see what this looks like in my daily life.

When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.  My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving

Kim McMillen

My 5 Favorite Things for Self Care to Make Progress on Goals

1. Getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night
2. My Morning Routine
3. Drinking My Water and Smoothie Daily
4. My Simplified Planner by Emily Ley
5. Creating Systems in My Life

Sleep for Self Care

Get. Your. Sleep!! You have heard it a thousand times. Your body needs time to rest and reset. If you are constantly going to bed late, waking up late, and rushing out the door to get your kids to school, get to work, or get to class, then Sister, you need a new system.

• Cut yourself off from caffeine after a certain hour in the afternoon
• Set an actual bedtime
• Set an allotted time to scroll on your phone. Then, PUT IT DOWN.
• Read your favorite type of books to turn your brain off, and zone out.

I have also seen some moms talk about their baby or toddler sleeps in the bed with them and that’s why they can’t wake up early. Here’s my solution to that. Train your family. It will take time, but you have to train your family of what you expect of them. Tell your partner, I am getting up at 5am, and going to the living room. Tell your kids the night before, Mommy’s alarm will go off early, you stay in bed and get your sleep. If they come into the living room, hug them, and walk them back to bed. I had to do this with my daughter many times. I stuck with it. This is a practice. You have to let your family know what’s expected, and they will catch on. Now, I roll right over my 5 year old, shut the door, and go make my coffee.

You Need a Morning Routine

My morning routine has been the best thing I have done for myself since I became a mom. I learned about morning routines from Rachel Hollis, and I sincerely thank her for teaching me about it. My favorite part about waking up at 5am, making my coffee, and settling down into the couch to work on my gratitude, is that my entire house is quiet. Yes. The quietness is what I enjoy most, and is the biggest gift I have ever given myself.

I get to sit, and think, and daydream completely uninterrupted by my daughter, my husband, emails, to-do lists, home projects, financial stress, all of it. It’s QUIET. And if you are a mom, that is reason alone to wake up earlier than your family and carve that time out for yourself.

My morning routine is my ultimate self care practice. I cherish it. I take steps the night before to ensure I will have a peaceful morning. This means that every evening, we load the dishwasher, sweep the floor, wipe the crumbs off the table, pick up various toys laying around the living room, and fold the blankets on the couch. Every evening. My goal in the morning is to come into the living room and kitchen and NOT SEE A MESS. I do not want to walk in and think, I need to do those dishes! No. Morning routine is for me, so everyone cleans up the night before, so it’s picked up in the morning.

Drinking Water is Self Care

I carry a water cup around with me everywhere I go. And I do mean everywhere. We all know we’re supposed to drink water, but if you are not a natural water drinker like me, then you need to set yourself up for success.

• Order your preferred water container off Amazon. Everyone has a different preference, so I don’t have one to recommend. I like a cup, with a lid and a straw
• I use a Brita filter, and keep my Brita container in the fridge. I don’t like to buy all those water bottles, because I would have to drink 4 a day.
• Have a way to measure your water. I use a 2 quart Rubbermaid Container. I know if I drink that entire container, then I’ve hit my daily goal.
• Your daily water goal is half your body weight in ounces of water. Mine is 126/2 = 63. I need to drink 63 ounces of water per day, which is 2 quarts.

Use a Planner to Organize Your Life

I am a pen and paper type of girl. I like to open a monthly calendar and see everything that is happening in the upcoming month.

I love the Simplified Planner by Emily Ley. I use the daily version and I am on my 3rd year of using it. It’s pretty, has daily tabs for all those to-do lists, a monthly overview for appointments, and a notes section on the bottom of each page which is where I keep my meal plan. Using a planner is the best way to keep track of your life, know what’s coming ahead of time, and I even write my monthly goals on each month overview to ensure I am completing them.

When you get your new planner, take the time and set it up. Emily Ley has free downloads on her site, and my favorite is the perpetual birthday calendar. You write everyone’s birthday’s on the paper, and then year to year when you change your planner, you move that one paper into the new planner. Then, go through month by month and write it in your calendar. Now, you always know when everyone’s birthdays are! I also keep a list of our family’s top 10 go-to meals, a yearly overview of goals, and I keep a spot of the next year’s appointments or events. All in the notes section.

Create Systems To Make Your Life Easier

I love a system as much as I love a checked off to-do list! For me, having a plan, is relaxing. I don’t like not knowing what I am doing each day, so I have some systems in my life to help me along.

• Monthly or weekly planning meals.
  • Get family involved
  • Have a traditional night (Pizza Fridays, Taco Tuesdays)
  • Make it on the same day each week
  • Go grocery shopping the same day each week
• Organizing Fridge and Pantry and keeping a freezer list in my phone.
  • Take 2 hours and clean out and organize your pantry. Put like items together so you can see what you have.
  • Shop your pantry when you meal plan! (See how things connect together?)
  • I keep a freezer list in my phone so I know what meats we have on hand.
• Cleaning Up in the evening to wake up to a clean living room and kitchen.
  • Give your kids a job (my daughter’s is to clear and wipe down the table, and depending on how bad the floor it, sweeping.)
  • Load and run the dishwasher before bed
  • Clear toys out of the living room. Takes less than 5 minutes
  • Clear clutter off your “sitting space”
• Making a schedule for myself to work on goals.
  • Same time and place every day so you go on auto pilot and don’t have to think about it
  • Spend 5 minutes before bed thinking about what you want to do the next morning so you already have it in your mind when you wake up
• Saturday cleaning day
  • My family knows Saturday is cleaning day. This is for the deeper cleaning that needs to get done each week, or a project, like cleaning out a closet.
  • If you make it a routine, everyone knows what’s expected of them
  • Put on music, give everyone a task, and a time limit!
  • Reward yourselves for your hard work! Ice cream is always fun.

Life is busy y’all. But I really do believe that if you spend a small amount of time working on these areas, then you create more time later in your schedule for the things that really matter, and for me, that’s quality family time. It also helps when your partner and kids help you, and know that it’s everyone’s job in the house to help clean up.

Track Your Self Care To Help You Achieve Your Goals

Using a habit tracker is something new I started this year in my goal journal (a regular Mead notebook.) I wanted a visual reminder that I am doing the things I say I want to do, and I want to see how often I am not doing the things I say I want to do. If I am not doing them consistently, then I need to re-evaluate if that particular thing still applies and is something I really want to be doing.

One thing I have learned is that you can’t measure something if you don’t start tracking it. If you don’t have any idea where you started, then how will you know how far you’ve come? Building new habits and routines into your life takes time, and to help yourself along the way, you may need a daily list to check off to ensure you are actually making that time for yourself.

What My Daily Self Care Looks Like

• Wake up at 5am
• Make coffee, drink some water, grab goal and gratitude journal
• Sit on the couch and drink my coffee, wake up, and start thinking about the day prior
• At 6am, walk to my office and work on a goal for 30 minutes at least. (If I am training, then this time is my run time, and my writing goals are generally put on hold or moved to another time in the day.)
• 7am- Get ready for the day
• 7:30 am- Wake up my daughter, and get her ready for the day (she’s currently in preschool, so this will change soon)
• 8:15- breakfast for her, smoothie for me, fill up my daily water container and start drinking my water
• 9:00- she goes to school, I come home and work and start on my other tasks
• 7:30 pm is bedtime routine
• 8:30-9:00pm is wind down time for me. This can include catching up with my husband if we didn’t at dinner, scrolling social, reading, etc. I put the phone down and drift off to sleep after that

What Does Your Self Care Look Like?

I hope this article has given you some ideas to implement in your life. I am very passionate about every person taking time for themselves. Life is so chaotic, and every person needs to fill their own cup. If you are a mama, to pour into your family, you have to make sure your cup is full.

Come hangout with me on Instagram. If you need some encouragement or ideas to actually get started, comment below here or on IG. https://www.instagram.com/heygoalsister/

Sending light. Alicia