Aware is Self-Care

Often we look into self-care when feeling exhausted, burnt out, and overwhelmed. But, what if you looked at it from prevention than from recovery? I’ve always been a supporter of routine maintenance over crisis management. In a perfect world, we would make time for self-care every day. If you’re looking for some quick strategies to support your self-care I have a good list of them HERE. There is one thing that isn’t on that list though. A variety of self-care that often is overlooked. 

Awareness. 

In particular, being aware of your own limits. Knowing your limits in all facets of life is vital for keeping you grounded, organized, and free from burnout. Let’s use this example from my high school days. My nephew was in the class below me and we were both involved in many of the same activities, track being one of them. He was a distance runner. I was a jumper. So when he wanted to “go for a run” his idea was 8+miles at a pretty good clip. He always invited me to go with him and I always said no, even when he’d offer to “run slow”. Not because I didn’t need the workout, not because he would be a bad running buddy, but because I knew my limits and anything beyond about 2 miles was my max at that time. So I honored that, for his sake and my own. It was easy to honor that limit because the physical repercussions were so clear to me. It is a little harder to honor limits with our time and our mental energy.

The first step is to be aware. As you go through your day begin to focus on where you’re spending your energy and what tasks, people, and places drain the most from you. As you begin to enhance your awareness, you will begin to find the places where you’re over stretched or overburdened. 

Now, if your first thought is, “I’m overstretched everywhere!” then I want you to pay extra attention to each of these facets of your life. You are likely not overwhelmed by every single task in your day. It feels like that because the stress from one area is following you like a cloud and spilling over to another. For example, let’s say you are working on a big project at work and one person on your team isn’t pulling their weight so you’re picking up the slack. That is adding a layer of stress and overwhelm that usually doesn’t exist. When you get home and your children need to be fed, it feels overwhelming because those tiny humans “aren’t pulling their weight either.” Except they are under five, so cooking supper might be out of their wheelhouse for the time being. Since you are experiencing that overwhelm at work, it bleeds into your home life and makes the task of preparing supper feel daunting. That is why it is so important to be aware! 

Once you have determined where your energy is being depleted, you can hold some better boundaries around your limits. This might mean saying no to another project at work, opting to not volunteer at this time, or looking into a frozen pizza for supper instead of a 3-course meal. Once you have become aware of where your limits are and the negative results from pushing them it is easier to honor them.  

This week I challenge you to take 10 minutes of your day to become more aware and begin to incorporate this awareness into your self-care routine.

If you'd like some guidance as you become aware of the energy zappers in your life and what to do next, let's work together! Schedule your session HERE.