The five pillars of self-care work in unison to create wholeness in your life. By incorporating physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual activities into your daily routine, you are nourishing your complete self. Making time to care for ourselves is crucial to living a balanced, happy, healthy, fulfilling life.

But determining where you should focus your efforts can add to the deluge of your day. And the last thing you need as a busy mom is more overwhelm. So, let’s talk about how to identify what you truly need. 

Develop Your Self-Care Plan

Self-care isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; what a stay-at-home mom to toddlers needs will be different from a working mom to a teen. The demands of your daily life influence what kind of self-care you might need the most. Your self-care plan will require customization to your needs and current life situation. Taking steps each day, ensuring you are getting what you need, will help you manage the stress and challenges of your daily life.  

Follow these steps to help you build a self-care plan to fit your needs:

1. Assess your needs. Make a list of the different areas of your life and significant activities you engage in each day. Or, use our Self-Care Survey to help you determine what areas you’d like to focus on. 
2. Consider your stressors. Identify aspects of these areas that cause stress and consider ways to address that stress.
3. Devise self-care strategies. Think about some activities you can do to help you feel better in each area of your life. When you discover you’re neglecting a particular aspect of your life, create a change plan.
4. Plan for challenges. Integrating anything new into our lives takes time. This is especially true when changing patterns of behavior. Expect push-back, both from yourself and even your loved ones. This shift is new for all of you, but if you stick with it, it will be worth it. 
5. Schedule time to focus on your needs. Make self-care a priority even when you feel like you don’t have time to squeeze in one more thing. When you’re caring for every aspect of yourself, nurturing your five pillars, you’ll find you can operate more effectively and efficiently. You’ll be better equipped to care for and love your family by showing love to yourself.

Download: The Self-Care Survey: Nailing your self-care needs

 Don’t Forget!

We’re going to cover how to fit self-care into your life in the upcoming lessons, but for now, we want to make sure you don’t forget a vital piece: grace. You have a lot on your plate, mama. If self-care is starting to feel like just another thing on your never-ending to-do list, remember you don’t have to do it all. It’s okay to focus on one pillar at a time. In fact, it’s more than okay. When instituting a new habit, you’ll be more successful if you don’t try to change too much too fast. Remember, the name of the game with Pursue the REAL You (and life in general) is small steps, big shifts. 

Up Next…

Now that we’ve identified how to edify your life and place your focus, we’ll delve into the third stage of Pursue the REAL You: Attaining buy-in.