Episode 12: How to Make Self-Care a Priority When You Are Super Busy

Life can be hectic and creative crazy at times and making yourself a priority is key all the time. But things can start to fall to the wayside when you’re busy and making yourself a priority, making your self-care a priority is key as you navigate life. And today I’m going to be sharing some really awesome tips on how to make yourself a priority and your self-care practices a priority when you are busy.

Before we get into the tips, if you can make sure you like to subscribe and leave an honest review, I would greatly appreciate it. By subscribing, you are helping us grow our community and reach more people. And when we reach more people, we’re able to assist people in not feeling alone during their awakening process. So please subscribe. I would greatly appreciate it. And let’s move on to the tips.

All right. So one of the things that I want to encourage you to do, that’s top number one priority is identifying what falls to the wayside when you are busy when it comes to your self-care practices. For me, when I’m super busy, there are two things that fall to the wayside really easily for me, and that is not eating and not drinking enough water. When I’m busy, I just get so distracted and so consumed in my work that food doesn’t become a priority. Drinking water doesn’t become a priority. And so I know this about me. So the next step, once you identify what it is that falls to the wayside, you have to come up with a plan.

And then you gotta make that plan easy to implement. So for me, the plan would be I’m going to meal prep on Sundays and Wednesdays. That meal prep is going to be for my lunch. If I know I’m really busy into the night and dinner might fall off, I’m also going to meal prep for dinner as well. Typically for my schedule, if I’m really busy, it’s only lunchtime that falls to the wayside. So I’m going to meal prep or I’m going to make enough food for dinner where there are leftovers for lunch and it’s already in a container. It’s easy for me to heat up. I don’t have to worry about or think about what I’m going to eat. It’s already there. I’ve already planned it out and it’s easy for me to implement.

So let’s say you have a journaling practice. And when you get really busy, you forget to journal. You’re going to make it easy by putting the journal and the pen in a place where you’re going to take a break. Or it’s going to be easy for you to remember to journal. You’re also going to schedule it in your calendar. If your meditation practice, your journal practice, your movement practices, your exercising, anything can be scheduled in your calendar. If any of those things are things that fall to the wayside you’re going to schedule them in the calendar. So for me, I’m going to meal prep on Sundays and Wednesdays. Or right when I’m done with dinner, I’m going to schedule time right after I’m done with dinner to put together my lunch for the next day as well.

So this is something that I also do for my daughter. I’ll make her lunch immediately as I’m putting away everything for dinner, so I know that she has food for the next day. So, making a habit of when it is that you’re going to be doing these days and scheduling it in your calendar as well, making sure it’s easy for you to implement as well too.

So let’s say if you’re wanting to make sure that you meditate daily, one of the things that you can do is you can decide what guided visualizations you’re going to meditate to the night before, you’re going to have your headphones, you’re going to have your phone next to you, you’re going to put it in your calendar, and you’re going to implement it when that time comes.

The other tip I want to give you is to make sure that you are taking breaks throughout the day.

This is really important whenever you’re busy. Most people think like, well, if I just continue, if I just push through, we’re going to get more work done. That’s simply just not true. You’re more productive when you take breaks. Research has also shown that if you take a break once an hour, you’re going to be more productive. You’re going to get more done.

Maybe you don’t have time to take a break once an hour, or maybe you have meetings every 2 hours, or you have an event to go to every 3 hours. Whatever it is, you need to make sure that you have breaks scheduled in and you schedule them and you stick to the schedule. That’s really important. What you do on your break is totally up to you. You can go for a walk, you can get some sunshine, you can drink some water, you can eat a snack, you can clear your energy, you can meditate, you can make a phone call.

The key is this break is not work-focused or not focused on tasks. You’re just taking care of yourself on this break. And doing nothing is doing something. Let me say that again. Doing nothing is doing something. You are resting, you are decompressing, you are feeling good, you can practice gratitude, whatever it is that you want to practice on this break. Totally up to you. Encourage breaks. I find that when I take a break when I’m super busy, I’m like, why don’t I take these breaks more often? And you might find when you’re busy that you come up with some new habits that you can implement into your regular daily schedule that feel really good and you might surprise yourself.

So for me, I know way back when I used to offer these discovery sessions, and anytime we would offer them, they were free. They would literally be booked within an hour of offering them. And I would have 80 to 100 scheduled in my calendar instantly. And so I had to get really good at taking breaks, eating food, drinking water, and scheduling time in between. And I realized that by being so busy, I could actually be more productive when I wasn’t so busy because I implemented all of these tips so that I would feel good.

And I was like, “oh, this is so awesome. Now that I’ve been through this, I can actually implement this on a daily basis because then it makes me feel better.” But I want to encourage you that whatever you feel works for you when you are busy, implement it and continue to implement it because these are some habits that will be built from just being busy, which will help you in the long run as well.

The next thing I’m going to share with you is a tip that you might find a little strange. But for me, I think this is really great because it takes you off the hook if you’re feeling guilty or stressed that you’re not able to reach out to family members or friends when you’re really busy.

So anytime you’re going into a busy project or into a busy period in your life, I know that for me, my habits change on my communication and I’m not checking in as often as I would like with certain people that I love. And so anytime I’m going into a busy period, I will let them know like, hey, I have this project coming up. I’m not going to be able to chat with you as much as I normally do. Let’s schedule a time to either have a phone date or have lunch or have dinner or go do something once I’m done with this busy period.

This allows you to take yourself off the hook for doing these things. It also allows your people, your community, your friends, and your loved ones to know what’s going on just so they know that you’re not ghosting them or maybe to check in and just say hi and know that this allows your family members and friends to know what’s going on as well so they know what’s going on with you and are going to be expecting you to reach out or they’re going to reach out to you once you’re done with this busy period in your life.

And it’s great because you don’t have to feel obligated to do something you don’t have the capacity to do. With that also being said, I want to encourage you to say yes to social events if it’s going to nurture you and support you in this busy period in your life. Sometimes these beautiful and I’m putting this in quotations these beautiful “distractions” can nurture your soul and be a form of self-care.

So check-in does this feel good, does this nurture me while I’m in this busy period of time, or does this add more stress? If it adds more stress, say no. If it nurtures you, say yes. If it serves the highest good, say yes. If it doesn’t do either one of those things, say no and be okay with saying no. That’s really important. Sometimes we have to say no to things because your self-care and your sanity are more important and that is okay, too.

So let’s recap really quickly. Make sure you’re making yourself a priority by identifying what falls to the wayside when you are busy, then make a plan to ensure that it doesn’t fall to the wayside. Make it easy to implement. Schedule breaks. Reach out to your loved ones. Let them know what’s going on in your life just so you don’t feel obligated to have to reach out to them every moment that you normally would and do social gatherings if it nurtures your soul, be in community, if it nurtures your soul and if it doesn’t say no, it’s perfectly okay to say no. It’s key to having self-care practices daily.

Make them easy, and continue to take care of yourself no matter if you’re busy or not busy, you deserve it, my friend. I look forward to seeing the next episode. Take care, bye.