The 6 Most Effective Self-Care Tips For Working Women
You probably already know this but allow me to say it again: The right mindset and proper self-care routines are, without a doubt, secret keys to be successful, not just at your job, but in life in general.
Having a successful career is not easy for anyone, let alone for women who have that extra pressure in a corporate world, especially if they have or want to have a family as well.
Are you also feeling overwhelmed all the time? Your job requires your 100% attention and then you come home and feel guilty for your house not being cleaned, for not having dinner ready, for not being with your kids enough or not taking the time to be alone with your husband or boyfriend. And then every day you say that something needs to change, but it never does. You’re not alone!
With all that, it’s easy to become insecure and to start questioning the point of everything.
Without having the right mindset and taking care of yourself, you’re just adding more anxiety and guilt to your plate and you’re never really satisfied, no matter the accomplishments you’ve made.
All that can lead to burnout which (like all of the above wasn’t enough), reduces your ability to give your best and your problem-solving skills are no longer at a level that would satisfy you.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to get back on track and be the person you really are: capable and confident.
So let’s dive in.
First I want you to understand the importance of self-care. When you google self-care, you’ll get this definition:
Self-care is the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.
That being said, I feel like there’s no need to explain that it’s is not just mani-pedi, having your hair done or going to the spa. Self-care is everything you’re consciously doing to make yourself satisfied and happy. It is having the right mindset, the right point of view, being aware of your strengths and weaknesses, knowing when it’s time to take a break, being grateful and everything else that keeps your feet on the ground.
The end goal of self-care is to feel better and more satisfied, to get clarity to be able to make decisions and choices based on a clear and objective mind.
Here are 6 self-care tips every working woman should always have in mind or even create her daily routines that involve them.
First, be mindful of the fact that you have a job, which makes you one step closer to your goals. Every situation in life has its challenges. If you didn’t have a job (or if you’d lose this one), you would have a different set of, I would say harder, challenges. Keep that in mind and be grateful.
As for the daily struggles, positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. Thinking positively doesn’t mean that you should think as if everything is great when it’s not. It means that when you recognize a problem, you need to know that in most cases you have the ability to fix things and turn the situation around.
And when you’ve tried everything and feel like there’s nothing more you can do about it, change your point of view, approach it from a different perspective. Make it so it doesn’t bother you as much, learn from it, change your attitude.
Of course, you can do everything, but you can’t do it all at the same time. As much as it’s important to know your abilities, it’s even more important to recognize when it’s time to slow down and get things off your plate. Don’t create unnecessary stress – know when you’re overdoing it and stop.
Think about what you can outsource. Can you hire someone to do your laundry and general house cleaning every week? Or every other week? Can you meal prep for the week? (Check out this Healthy Meal Planning Bundle for some great meal prep guides)
If you keep pushing your boundaries and making yourself stressed out, you’ll easily end up feeling sorry for yourself because no one recognized your effort and said: Wow, you’re really doing something special.
Related: How To Be Productive, Not Busy
3. Create a work-life balance
It’s good to be passionate about your job and committed to work – while you’re working. Don’t take it home with you. Even if you’re an entrepreneur or if you’re working from home, it’s important to define working hours.
Of course, you can share your struggles from work with your husband, but it shouldn’t affect your mood for the rest of the day (at least not most of the time).
Again, you can create an evening routine with your family. It can be a TV show you’ll watch together, doing homework with your kids, going out to dinner or meeting friends.
Related: Work Burnout: How To Recognize It And Prevent It From Getting Worse
Related: The 9 Best Productivity Apps To Organize Your Life
4. Think about what you eat
With all the business that’s going on in your life on a daily basis, you don’t have time to think about what you’re eating. You just grab something that will fill your empty stomach and you continue what you were doing. Or even worse, you skip meals and just forget about them.
Unhealthy food negatively affects your mood (and health, of course), and you’re holding yourself down without even being aware of what’s causing your constant negativity.
Start thinking about what you’re eating and drink a lot of water.
You can start your day with a super easy-to-prepare natural remedy that will boost your energy. Or if you’re ready to take one step further, I always recommend Healthy Meal Planning Bundle from our friends at The Ultimate Bundles. They offer many meal prep tips and ideas and much more. It’s just amazing the way it makes your life easier. You can check it out here.
Useful tip: If you tend to forget about lunchtime, set a timer that will remind you that it’s time to eat.
5. Exercise for your mental and psychical health
Ok, we all know that working out can make wonders for our bodies, but according to HelpGuide “Exercise is also one of the most effective ways to improve your mental health. Regular exercise can have a profoundly positive impact on depression, anxiety, ADHD, and more. It also relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood.”
It takes a lot of discipline to start working out (if that’s not your thing – I hear you!), but finding a system that works for you and sticking to it is the way to go. Whether is it 2 to 3 times a week for an hour, or 15-20 minutes of exercise each day, right after you get up.
I tried both and found that exercising every day in the morning for 20 minutes works best for me and it’s something I could follow through, because every time I tried a different approach, it ended up with me quitting.
6. Have a get-out system
This self-care tip is the most important one. Even if you follow every self-care method and routine mentioned in this post, there will be times when you’ll feel anxious, depressed and helpless.
It is so important that you recognize these emotions and not let them develop into something more than just a few bad days.
When you have a period of few bad days (one week the most), have a get-out system. Do something that is not part of your daily routine. Meet a friend you haven’t seen in awhile, read a book or go to the spa. And if this is something that lasts for some time now, take the weekend off and go somewhere. And whatever you choose to do, do it with the right mindset.
For example, if you’re going to meet a friend, call the one that you enjoy talking to and tell yourself: Ok, I’m going to meet `Mary` because talking to her always relaxes me.
Or if you’re taking the weekend off, go with this mindset: I can’t wait to go, getting out of town will fill my batteries and I’ll be a new person when I come back.
Conclusion
We live in times when it’s never been so important to take care of ourselves. There are so many distractions and things available to us nowadays that feeling overwhelmed is a daily struggle and not just something that happens when we have something big going on in our lives.
As much as I don’t like the term ‘practice self-care’ because it sounds like a membership club (and therefore is misunderstood), it’s something that every single person needs to start doing daily, one way or another.
It is also so important for you to know that it is absolutely ok to start with just one out of six above mentioned self-care tips and then add as you feel. Actually, if you’re not doing any of it, it’s preferable to start with only one, because you’ll easily feel, again, overwhelmed.
