Self-care means asking yourself what you need and following through on the honest answer. Practicing self-care can be as simple as getting to bed earlier on a work night, or as hard as taking a look at some of the habits you’ve created for yourself and their long-term effects.
What Is Self-Care?
Self-care is the practice of taking an active role in protecting our own well-being, pursuing happiness, and having the ability, tools, and resources to respond to periods of stress so that they don’t result in imbalance and lead to a health crisis. Self-care means asking yourself what you need, and following through on the honest answer. Self-care can be as simple as getting to bed earlier on a work night, or as hard as taking a look at some of the habits you’ve created for yourself and their long-term effects.
The History of Self-Care
The “radical” concept of self-care was born during the civil rights era, a time when brave individuals were fighting the relentless enemies of prejudice and discrimination. These American heroes created the first real communities of care, standing strong together in the face of seemingly impossible challenges and unspeakable treatment.
It can’t be lost on us that one of the concepts they were fighting for was (and remains) the basic human right to self-care. People of color were often denied medical treatment at hospitals and healthcare centers. The government had turned its back on them. Self-care, quite literally, became a matter of life and death. They were fighting an exhausting battle and the only support to be found was in each other and within themselves.
The basic idea of being able to care for oneself, of having the time, money, and resources necessary to do so, was born out of the civil rights movement.
How to Build a Self-Care Movement
1) Let’s destigmatize mental health. We need to change the way we look at mental health and make sure every person has access to the caregivers, transportation, treatment, and funds needed to properly address mental health.
2) Commit to sharing your self-care knowledge. We all have daily routines and personal challenges. But let’s stop trying to go it alone. When we take the time to create space in our schedules for others; when we organize and meet up with our friends and social groups; even when we exchange a few thoughtful emails, we’re building communities of care and, therefore, fueling the self-care revolution.
3) Help define the standards. The slow adoption of self-care in our culture is in big part due to a lack of definition. We don’t know what the standards of self-care are, or should be, because they’ve never been clearly established. Once we define the standards for self-care, it will legitimize our cause by providing a clear roadmap for people to follow. They’ll be able to create a plan, measure their progress, and make changes along the way based on realistic and achievable goals.
4) Understand that exhausted leadership is poor leadership. Exhaustion leads to shorter attention spans, increased emotional volatility, and poor decision making—Not exactly the qualities of a great leader. That’s why it’s vital that our efforts in leading the self-care movement are sustainable. If we burnout, it will be replicated by our staff, volunteers, children, and others in our sphere of influence. To create a culture of self-care we must be willing to model a sustainable work pace.
5) Ask reflection questions to yourself and your team. In the effort to move from reflection to action, and to build momentum to climb that next peak, we should ask ourselves key questions that will help us improve our own self-care habits and that of those around us. These questions may include:
- How does the quality of my leadership diminish due to the lack of my own self-care?
- Which habit(s) negatively impact my self-care and what new behavior can I substitute it with?
- Do I have a self-care plan in place to ensure I follow-up on this new behavior and have I shared this plan with others who will hold me accountable?
- How will I track my progress along the way?
- How can I best support my staff/volunteers/friends/family members in their endeavors?
The modern self-care movement needs to start as a practice to avoid burnout, rather than as a response to it. The movement must demand that individuals put their health and wellness first without feeling guilty for doing so.
Why Is Self-Care Important?
Self-care can be an intervention tool that keeps you from being completely sucked into the vortex, saving you when you find yourself standing on the precipice gazing into the dark abyss.
3 Reasons You Need a Self-Care Plan
A Self-Care Plan is a fail-safe, created by you, and filled with your favorite self-care activities, important reminders, and ways to activate your self-care community. Here’s why it’s important to create your own Self-Care plan:
1) Customizing a Self-Care Plan is a preventative measure. By designing a roadmap that is unique to you, in moments when you’re NOT in crisis, you’re directing your best self to reflect on what you may need (and have access to) in your worst moments. The reality is that only YOU know how intense your stress levels can get and what resources are available to you.
2) Having a plan takes the guesswork out of what to do and where to turn in moments of crisis. From a