One of my favorite self-help authors, Cheryl Richardson, wrote The Art of Extreme Self-Care. The purpose of her book is to help individuals practice self-care and eliminate toxic situations, actions, and so on.
Self-care is one of the most overlooked, yet, profound necessities for solo-entrepreneurs. For many, they have mastered the art of it. For others, they may have no clue that an art of self-care even existed. Then, there are the others that know it, but choose to do nothing with it and continue to live an unbalanced life. The purpose of this post is to provide you with three things that you can do today to practice the art of self-care as a solo-entrepreneur.
1. Stop doing whatever it is that you are doing. Give yourself 15 minutes to review this post and how the suggestions come into play within your life. If you cannot give yourself 15 minutes, you have bigger fish to fry. However, 15 minutes could be a good start to helping you identify those issues. In addition to 15 minutes, if you have a pen and paper snag that too.
2. Measure how you feel right now. Take a moment to conduct a self-inventory of your emotions. How do you feel? Why do you feel the way you do? What factors lead up to you feeling the way you do? What actions do you do to switch gears and work in more effective manner? Are they healthy? These are just a few questions to ask yourself about your current emotional state. You may be wondering why I am even asking about your emotional state. Well, it is the foundation of practicing self-care. Our emotions impact our lives daily in a positive or negative way. The ability to identify and measure how your feelings make you feel is not only essential from a personally, but also professionally.
3. Identify your “musts” and “must not(s)”. The “musts” and “must not(s)” lists are the first self-care exercises that changed my world. The purpose of this activity is for you to identify the things that you must have and must not have in your life. , this is yet another self-inventory exercise that helps you to identify what outcomes, activities, people, and emotions you want in your life. It also helps to serve as a personal gap analysis. You may be surprised to view how many of your “must not(s)” happen. The identification of such issues serves as an opportunity to evaluate how, why, and when such things occur within your life. It also serves as an identified need for an intervention. The ability to stop whatever inputs or outputs that allow the “must not have” areas to show up in your life is essential to extreme self-care. Not doing anything would simply the definition of “insanity – doing the same thing again and expecting different results,”. Likewise, this also serves as a stellar moment to evaluate your “must have(s)” and to track your performance of making those things a reality – daily. Yes, daily. The problem that many individuals, especially, solo-entrepreneurs know what they want, but have a hard time making it a must. The ability to shift from desire to having is key. Making the time for “must have(s)” is an essential element of self-care.
In conclusion, these are three straightforward, simple, and easy to use approaches to practicing the art of self-care. Whether you’re a solo-entrepreneur or not, these actions make a difference. The small steps of getting started are just the beginning. The bigger steps come from action. Once the “must have” actions become a regular part of your daily routine, the happier, healthier, and more balanced you’ll be. You may even find yourself reflecting on why you did not make such “must haves” a priority in the first place. The kicker is the more you take care of you, the more you be able to be better at everything that you do. When people feel overwhelmed or drained, every other aspect of their life feels it too. So, start today with these three simple steps to getting back to the basics of taking care of you.