How incorporating your (much deserved) self care routine can boost your wellbeing and productivity.
Success and the methods to achieving it have been preached for ages, but often in formulaic and “perfect” examples that lack personability, circumstance, and plain realisticality. Thus, they’re not very helpful at all. One person’s journey is not the same as the next’s, and on top of it all, it’s rare to see any of them include the crucial component we all should incorporate into ways of life...
What we neglect? Prioritizing our self care.
In reality, a stronger you will result in productivity. Without continuous, prioritized self care, being productive and feeling that “success” is either unachievable or on a path that won’t ever feel genuinely successful at all. Overlooking your own nourishment makes it difficult to nourish other aspects and/or people in your life (not impossible, but difficult--and simply unfair!).
Take care of YOU. After all, you are the driving force; your mind, body, and soul combined is the only vessel you have in this life: the only vessel you have the power to operate. So, tend to it. Listen to it. Care for it. Love it.
Know your boundaries and enforce them, BUT
Always push yourself to continue growing. Recognize your comfort zone, just don’t allow it to inhibit growth!
Celebrate yourself and your accomplishments, big and small. Make sure you’re crediting the vessel that brought you here.
Accept that success is subjective; your idea of it can and will change, and that is OKAY! It’s a good thing to reach a goal, then make another one (and know that your goals won’t be the same as your best friend’s).
Organize your time and tasks. Know when you need breaks, but also know when you’re more likely to get that ish done.
AND make prioritize time for you, whether that be with reading a new book or one that will always be a staple, journaling, meditating, exercising, sleeping, binge-watching your favorite show, tending to your health and wellness needs; feed your soul with whatever “food” is best for you. Not everyone relaxes and/or expresses creativity in the same way, so do what you enjoy, not what you think is expected of you. So, yes--gobble up that chocolate bar (just drink that water too!).
In addition, prioritize the relationships that make you feel good, and subtract the ones that don’t. Tending to your relationships, whether they be romantic, familial, or platonic, is a form of self care! Surrounding yourself with people that care for you as much as you care for them is absolutely important.
Do all of these things with love and kindness. Not just for others, but for, and most importantly, you.
This list isn’t a step-by-step to the perfect life--that doesn’t exist. It’s just here to remind you that you are important, too. Taking care of yourself sounds simple, but it’s crucial in order to really feel that fulfilment you deserve from life. And you do deserve it! Understand that prioritizing you can and will boost your productivity for the other parts of life you prioritize. It’s not selfish--it’s self love.
Image By: Jeremy Cai