The Self Care Plan For High-Achieving, Self-Aware Women
Women Are Exhausted
Many of the self-aware, high-achieving women I know are stuck in old patterns and beliefs of trying to please everyone, achieve perfection, and meet society’s standards of beauty.
We want to change the story. We want to reconnect with ourselves and practice mindfulness and live our purpose. But the old stories of the “have to’s” and “shoulds” are still stuck in our heads as we run from one obligation to the next on autopilot.
There are many factors that feed these stories of pleasing and perfection, including how we were raised, the culture we were born into, society’s standards, and so on. Women feel heavy with all of the expectations placed upon them. It’s no wonder we are all exhausted.
I believe that we can change these stories. We can feel more present and calm, we can find more joy and less overwhelm. You can find the cadence of the life you want, starting today.
The path to get there? It’s self-care.
The beauty of self-care is that when we slow down to carve out time for ourselves, we start to hear our inner voice. The more we practice, the louder it gets. We start using our intuition as a guide and listening to ourselves, rather than all of the outside voices. Then, our lives begin to change.
Sleep Is Self-Care
When I first met my husband, I prided myself on how little sleep I needed. I had over an hour commute each way (in DC traffic), worked all day as a scientist, then worked evenings as a gymnastics coach. I was able to use this mindset of “more” to push through graduate school and having my first child. But when we found out our second child had a severe heart condition and my life as I knew it disappeared, I finally realized I needed rest. I needed to slow down. Like, in order to survive.
The past decade changed me from someone who got anxious at the mere thought of a nap to someone who prioritizes her sleep schedule above almost everything else.
When all of my other self-care routines fly out the window, the one I try to stick to is getting good sleep. Most experts recommend that adults get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Lack of sleep has been linked with chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. Not to mention the mental fogginess that we feel when we don’t get enough sleep.
If you are not getting the recommended amount of sleep, start your self-care journey here. Little changes can help you form better sleep habits. Also, if you are a new mom, come back to this article in 1-2 years, ok? (Even more important than sleep is self-compassion!)
Start with your bedtime routine. Try to set a bedtime for yourself and stick to it. Wind down with a cup of camomile tea and a fiction novel or one episode of a show your family loves. If these things stimulate your mind too much, try a sleep meditation from the Insight Timer free app. Turn your phone off an hour before you head to bed.
Arianna Huffington has a wealth of resources about prioritizing sleep over busywork that you can check out here. This is not about getting everything done before you head to bed. This is about making the effort to put sleep above your to-do list.
Put Self-Care On Your Calendar
Busy women know that if it doesn’t get on the calendar, it doesn’t happen. Try scheduling your self-care like you would any other meeting. It doesn’t have to be for a long period of time. Put a 15 minute date with yourself on the calendar twice this week. After you make progress and achieve a win (where you schedule it and actually follow through) you can start to increase the number of self-care dates or the length of them.
Do yourself a favor and put your self-care date at a time when you are more likely to actually do it. If you hate mornings, don’t force yourself to get up at 4am. If you know it’ll never get done in the middle of the evening rush, don’t schedule it for 7pm. What about at 3pm when you are usually sitting in your office dreaming about the coffee cart?
For Self-Care: Remember What You Love
You know the importance of sleep and you have a self-care date marked on the calendar. Now what? What should you actually do with that 15 minutes? Start with something you love.
This may actually be harder than it sounds because we spend so much time putting everyone else’s needs above our own that we aren’t really sure what we even enjoy anymore.
It may help to recall what you loved when you were a little girl. Dancing? Drawing? Daydreaming? Here are three ideas for your self-care date if these are things you enjoy:
Make a playlist of your favorite songs to dance to. At the time of your self-care date, press shuffle and dance to the first three songs that come up.
Put a small notebook and set of colored pens in your bag. Don’t spend time worrying about what type of pen to buy - the lowest barrier of entry will be to use what you already have at home. At the time of your self-care date, pull out your supplies and doodle.
At the time of your self-care date either put on your coat and go outside for a 15 minute walk or simply close your eyes and breathe. Visualize the good things you want in your life. I love to picture myself on stage in front of a welcoming audience or lounging in a tropical location.
Baby Steps Towards Self-Care
Notice that the ideas I gave in the previous section are either free or very cheap. We’ve been sold that self-care is a weekend getaway with our girlfriends or day at the spa, but this type of thinking gets us into trouble. While, yes, those things are lovely, they take lots of resources - time, money and energy- to plan and execute.
Instead, I want you thinking about how to incorporate simple and easy to access self-care without spending any additional resources. We want your new self-care dates to fuel your energy and eventually make you feel less stressed about time.
If 15 minutes sounds too daunting, start with five. A student of mine talked about how she always worked through her day without taking breaks and she was pretty opposed to the idea of stepping away from her computer. She convinced herself to meet a friend for lunch and really enjoyed the time (and still got her work done). Next thing she knew she was taking a walk with another friend instead of sitting on the sidelines watching her son’s baseball practice. Connection, with other women, was what she needed for her self-care dates.
One act of self-care can lead to the next if we let it. Like any habit, you have to get consistent with self-care before you’ll start to see the effects. Here’s to less overwhelm and more purpose in our days!
Does the world right now have you feeling completely drained? Get access to my free, on-demand coaching session to finally figure out how to start your self care practice to unlock the stories within. 📖