What's Your Minimum Viable Self-Care Routine?
Among crumpled tissues and throat drop wrappers sits my laptop and my PSA to you. Fighting the urge to put my head back down on the pillow, a foggy head that begs to be horizontal, I tell myself—just one more thing and you can rest. It's a cold. Nothing more, nothing less—so why does it feel like I should throw in the towel on this day, on this week, on this whole thing called self-employment?
The worst part of it is—I did this to myself. Ouch, it hurts writing that. I've given up on my supplements regimen for months. I stayed up until the wee hours all week. I ate too much sugar. I consumed too much news (hello, cortisol!). These things strung together when I was 23 would have been called, "life"—but two decades later, my body is sticking me with a "time out". Hopefully I will learn my lesson this time around.
In order to continue to do what I love—helping my clients and being there for my family—I must be able to take care of this body, which has made its needs very clear.
Yes, there will be times when my energy is high, when I'm in a good groove with running and exercising, eating leafy greens like it's my job—and then there are the times when life happens and I'm lucky if I sneak in a 2 mile run between sessions. For those times, I'm taking a page from my tech colleagues.
Let's define our Minimum Viable Self-Care Routine!
Without it, we are non-functional.
With it, we're not our ideal vision of success—but we're operating, we're in action—and for the love—it's a starting point!
If you know what's worked for you in the past, but have fallen off the wagon, think through ways that you can re-ignite your commitment. Feeling like I do right now (she says, red nose aglow!) is definitely a motivator to do something different, but knowing myself, I'm also clear I must sweeten the deal.
My Minimum Viable Self-Care Routine will include simple things I know work for me:
1) Mostly clean, always gluten-free eating
2) Running 2-3 times a week
3) Daily supplements
4) 8-9 hours of sleep
Plus, things that can make me excited again about re-committing:
1) Trying out a new fun exercise class like kickboxing (who's in?)
2) A new evening wind-down routine that acknowledges all I've accomplished that day and is a reminder that I can let go (The sleep struggle is real no matter how articulate Arianna Huffington is on the topic!)
Because this is my MVSCR (who doesn't need another easy to remember acronym?), I am NOT going from head cold to 6 days a week at the gym or Whole 30. While I know I'm drawn to quick fix, dramatic life overhauls—I also know they don't work for me. I find that sometimes getting back to basics and committing to the no-brainer stuff clears the way for the possibility of bigger changes down the line. So I will take these baby steps to get back on track, but first—it's all about that nap!
