How I’m Practicing Self-Care in 2021

We’re only 12 days into 2021, and it’s already shaping up to be a crazy ride! In an effort to stay true to my resolution of practicing more self-love (and by proxy, self-care), I’ve been making a concerted effort to identify what practices in my life allow me to fill my cup, and which ones leave me drained. The past year really forced me to critically evaluate everything in my life – my choices, behaviors, mindsets, relationships – and think about the role they were playing in my health. Some of my goals for myself – to SLOW DOWN and say NO more often. After all, if you don’t take care of yourself and love yourself first, who will?

Here’s how I’m practicing self-care in 2021:

+ Establishing a morning routine

I always viewed a set morning routine as something YouTubers did, but preferred a slightly more ~unstructured~ morning to allow myself to do as I please. What I didn’t realize is how much joy having an actual morning routine can bring, if you fill it with practices that energize you. I never thought I’d be a meditation & journaling first thing in the morning kind of girl, but I tried it out at the recommendation of a few friends and what do you know, I’m sold. I downloaded Calm and bought myself a journal. And now it’s how I start every morning. I love it, but your ideal morning might look different. Try a few different routines until you find one that works for you.

+ Limiting the news and social media

To be clear, this does not mean I’m not reading any news or on social media at all. I personally think it’s important to be informed and to have a perspective on what’s going on in the world around, but I don’t feel that being up to the minute in what’s going on in the world is the best for my mental health. There are a lot of studies that show overconsumption of news and reading headlines can be detrimental to mental health, and I found that reading the news everyday was triggering a lot of negative emotions and reactions in myself. It’s also incredibly distracting and a time suck.

+ Investing in myself

Last year really put a lot of things into perspective for me. I realized at the end of the day I was investing a lot of time into events, energy into people, and money into material possessions that ultimately didn’t bring any joy or positivity into my life. At the end of the day, my close relationships, health, and career are so much more important. An act of self-care to me today isn’t rewarding myself by buying new clothes. I’d much rather save or invest the money for my future goals (and travel when we’re able to do that again). I’m also investing in my health by kicking off the year with Whole30 (a full post to come on this) and dedicating an hour everyday to move my body, even if it’s just a walk around the neighborhood.

+ Dedicated time to do nothing

I used to really look down on doing nothing. I thought if my day wasn’t meticulously scheduled out hour by hour, and if I wasn’t running around with my head cut off like a chicken, I was doing something wrong. At the end of the day my body not so gently told me to SLOW DOWN. And maybe once in a while, do nothing? So now I actually schedule blocks of time throughout the week to “do nothing” – and it’s been glorious. Some of my favorite things to do during this time? Read a book, take a bubble bath, write, journal, go outside, cook. It really is all about the simple things in life.

How are you practicing self-care this year? xx