The Unexpected Self-Care Strategy You Might Be Overlooking
Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash
One of my clients said something to me the other day that I thought was pretty darn profound, and I instantly knew I wanted to share it with you.
Here’s what he said:
“Organization IS self-care”.
Now first, let’s take a step back.
When you think of “self care”, what do you think of?
Bubble baths?
Massages?
I mean, sure, yes, those are forms of self-care. But they are stop-gap, bandaid helpers; not long term solutions.
And they aren’t the only forms of self-care.
Or maybe you can’t even define what self-care looks like to you because it’s been so long since you've done anything simply to care for yourself. (And I promise, you wouldn't be alone.)
When I’m first meeting with a new client, I ask them what they do for self-care, and often that question is met with a question:
“What do you mean by self-care?”
And here’s what I say:
“Self care is stuff you do for you.
It’s practices you put in place because they makes you feel good.
It’s stuff you do because it reduces stress and helps to buoy you through the hard stuff.
It’s boundaries you set, and enforce.”
So when my client told me, about ½ way through his coaching program with me that he’d realized that, for himself, “organization is self-care”, well, I couldn’t have been happier for him. And I also couldn’t agree more.
And it’s not just the organization of physical stuff we’re talking about. It’s organization of the mind.
When you learn how to get things out of your head and into a system…
When you learn to prioritize so that you can know, every single day, that the things you did were more important than the things you didn’t do…
When you know what to do with all those random thoughts spinning in your head…
When you have a system for handling incoming messages…
Do you know what happens?
You feel a whole hell of a lot less stressed. Even if the amount of stuff you need to do, or think you need to do, hasn’t changed one lick.
You know what else you feel?
A lot more in control.
And when you feel less stress and when you feel more in control you get to spend more of your time in the present, being present.
Doing things you know are important, or that simply make you feel good.
And you get to do it without the anxiety of something hanging over your head.
And without the guilt that you should be doing something else.
So, yes, organization IS self care.
And if you want that. I can help you achieve it.
If you’d like to reclaim your time for yourself, so you can do more of what you want and less of what you don’t. If you want to feel calm and in control at the end of the day, then you might want to consider Time Well Spent, my group coaching program. We’ll be enrolling at the end of August, and the program starts in September. You can join the waitlist now to be first to know when enrollment opens.
But let me share one more secret with you: Progress doesn’t happen all at once. It happens one step at a time. And you can start today.
What’s something (small) that you could organize today that would help you feel much better, much calmer?
What if you start with simply writing down what’s stressing you out, and coming up with one small action you can take to move that forward?
Or what if you put all your unopened mail into a single pile?
Or scrounged up all your to do lists and post-its and put them in one place?