Self Care Traps to Avoid

It’s no news that maintaining a self care routine is important for your mental, emotional and physical health and fundamentally for a happier life. You need to make sure, however, you can avoid the most common self care traps, and this is what you will learn below.

Especially when we are the maternal types, we tend to make sure everyone else’s needs are taken care of before ours. But as you already know, the saying goes: “you can’t fill from an empty cup”. And this is why the best thing you can do when you want to be at your best to take care of others, is to first take care of your own needs. Think about that if you are thinking this is selfish or makes you feel guilty for taking time to yourself. You are just ensuring you have more of yourself to give!

When you are not used to taking care of yourself, establishing a self-care routine can be challenging. This is natural with any new routine you want to add to your life.

When you understand how important establishing a self care routine is, there are some things to take into consideration. Determine what is actually a healthy self-care which will support your health and wellbeing, as opposed to harmful habits usually portrayed as “self care”. As a rule of thumb, ask yourself if this is something that will bring you pleasure now but could also result in problems in the future. If the answer is yes, it should not make it to your list of self care activities.

Here are the most common mistakes you should be aware of so you can steer away when you decide which elements will compose your self care routine.

Overspending

While indulging yourself is part of self care, not all feel good activities are created the same. Of course, buying some products or services (new shoes, a massage) can make you feel at the top of your game, but not if they are at the expense of your financial health.

In other words, make sure you use retail therapy sparingly, and not while compromising your credit. To give yourself a gift in the name of self care while you create your future self a financial problem is not self care.

The word here is balance. Don’t overspend, but don’t fall on the opposite extreme either. If you feel you are unable to ever treat yourself to a present, open a separate bank account and start saving some money in it just for that – at an amount you can afford. After a while, you will have enough to where you can buy yourself a reward (even if it’s not a yet a trip to Paris).

Getting Ahead of Yourself

Another tip that applies to anytime you are starting to establish a new routine, wanting to take on too much in too little time.

If you want to, all of a sudden: wake up at 5am, take a walk, meditate and have a long bath in the morning, then do yoga, have breakfast in your favorite café, read a book you love… you are taking on too much and you won’t be able to sustain it. Make a list of things you consider to be your favorite self care activities, and start with one a week. Once that’s been integrated into your routine, add another one.

Not Being Consistent

Talking about going in too fast, the other side of the coin is not being consistent. You implement something this week and, while you’re excided about it, you keep it up. But the following month, life gets in the way, and you end up forgetting all about it. Once you realize it, you haven’t practiced a self care activity in months.

This is why you need to make sure you have this down on your calendar just as you have work meetings, and make time for it just like you do for taking a shower, or doing groceries. It is a commitment to yourself, and those tend to be harder to keep. We tend to assume it is easier to let ourselves down than others. But having a high level of commitment to ourselves does wonders to our self esteem. In the end, we see we made the time for it, and made it happen – despite it not all being the perfect scenario. Why can’t we get the same level of commitment to ourselves than we have for others? Let’s stop letting ourselves down. Then an act of self care does twice as good.

Food Overindulgence

As a parent, I’ve heard before the advice to not use food as motivation for your children. And while I agree to it in theory, it is one of the things that work best (“finish your homework early and we can go out for ice cream” – anyone?), both for kids and adults.

The problem is, associating food with reward in fact is a bad idea for obvious reasons. Especially when it comes to unhealthy food and sugary treats. Then you are left with not only a bad association, but potentially also a weight gain or worse impacts to your health.

Naturally that doesn’t present a problem if you use a snack treat occasionally, and not as a routine habit.

Substance Abuse

Which brings me to the next topic: alcohol and substance use. Before you skip this paragraph, be honest. There is a culture that endorses having a few drinks at night to unwind, which is why we don’t think much of it. And before we know it, it becomes a habit, then becomes indispensable. Thankfully we are past the era where the same was thought regarding smoking cigarettes.

Some studies do say that moderate intake of red wine (about one glass a day) could be beneficial to your health, but if you are going overboard, be honest with yourself. If you suspect you may have a problematic relationship with alcohol, seek professional help. This is not a self care activity and will only create you problems in the future.

Generalizing Self Care

You would like to integrate a self care routine into your life, but you are so out of touch with yourself you don’t even know where to start. So you go to trusty Google to get some inspiration, and go down the usual list: get a massage, a manicure, take a bubble bath.

Go down that search results list, and really ask yourself: how would I like this? And make your own list. Ask yourself: what did I enjoy doing as a kid? Would that be fun/relaxing to me today? If the answer is “yes” and it is feasible, add it to your list.

Wrapping it up

Self care is about promoting health and happiness, without compromising your responsibilities. Of course everyone would love to live a life where all you do is self care everyday, all day long. However, that is not possible, or even necessary. We also have an innate need to be productive and of service to others.

But do realize practicing self care consistently is one of the best things you can do towards yourself. When you practice self care regularly, that benefits everyone around you, and that has a ripple effect. If you think of it like this, practicing self care is good for you and for humanity! How much better can it get?

What is the first activity you would add to a self care routine? Think about it and share in the comments, I’d love to hear!