The 1 self-care habit you are overlooking

What comes to your mind immediately you hear the word self-care? What do you see in your mind?

For me, I imagine myself in a spa getting a luxurious facial and a good massage. Maybe a mani and Pedi session and a glass of my favorite drink.

Sometimes we tend to associate self-care with money, or rather monetary items. But this is a screwed-up way of viewing it.

Although spending money on yourself is a form of self-care, there are many other very simple daily activities you can do to take care of yourself without feeling like you are not doing enough for yourself.

It’s the simple small daily activities that if you are present and mindful while doing them are the greatest form of self-care.

Remember that happiness is wealth. Being happy, at peace, and in tune with your inner self is very important to living life to its fullest.

Although we can not always be happy which is perfectly normal but that feeling of being content and feel truly in tune with yourself is priceless.

Today I will be taking you through some simple self-care activities that you might be overlooking.

Positive self talk

Yep.Talk to yourself kindly because you deserve it. 

Talk to yourself in the same way you would talk to someone you care about. Be your biggest cheerleader, encourage yourself and be kind to yourself.

Be your own best friend.

Grab yourself a free printable daily planner here

What is Self talk?

Self-talk is your inner dialogue influenced by your subconscious mind and everyone does this even without being aware of it.

You can not possibly be taking care of yourself by speaking about or to yourself negatively.

However, this is not something that you just wake up and start doing, you have to learn how to break the habit of negative self-talk and bringing yourself down.

Types of self-talk

 Negative self talk

This is the inner dialogue that limits your ability, makes you doubt your potential, and brings about negative emotions within your inner self.

There are  four categories of negative self-talk,

• Magnifying. Focusing and only seeing the negative aspect of a situation and blowing it out of proportion.

• Personalizing. You blame yourself for everything.

• Catastrophizing. Anticipating for the worst.

• Polarizing. Seeing things in two vies only, good or bad with no middle ground.

Recently, I did a presentation on a magazine covers on a topic of your choice we had been told to design. To begin with, I was very nervous to do my presentation even though it was an online class. I did my presentation and the lecturer said it was good but pointed out some areas I needed to improve on. Even after the class was over, I kept asking myself “Why didn’t I use a different font? I failed. I did not put in any effort. My work was the worst. I didn’t do my best. What if I fail the unit?”

At that moment I was negatively diminishing my potential and my effort. That right there was negative self-talk.

It’s very easy for us to quickly beat ourselves up and think about the worst-case scenario but this is not what we should do.

Surely if it was my friend who came to me with the same sentiments I would immediately shut them down and encourage them.

Then why don’t we do the same with ourselves?

Grab yourself a free printable daily planner here

 Positive self talk

This is the opposite of negative self-talk. This is showing compassion to yourself and being more kind to yourself.

Instead of blaming myself and having all those negative thoughts after my presentation, I should have tried saying this to myself instead.

 I am proud of myself for doing the presentation, I am proud of myself for even finishing the assignment. It’s ok if I don’t know everything because that is the reason why I am in school. I will do better next time.

Uplift and encourage yourself every time and when you find yourself having negative self-talk, take a deep breath and say this “I deserve kindness, I need to be kind to myself”

Always try speaking to yourself kindly because you deserve to be treated with kindness even by yourself.

 Grab yourself a free printable daily planner here