Why Self-Care is so important

How much time would you say you dedicate to self-care each week? Be honest. Truthfully, most weeks I don’t make it a priority to set aside any time for myself. I bet the same can be said for a lot of the moms reading this right now. It’s too easy to get caught up in your daily life to carve time out for you. Maybe you even consider it a bit selfish. Spoiler alert – self-care is not selfish, it’s necessary.

What is Self-Care?

“Self-care is giving the world the best of you, instead of what’s left of you.”
Katie Reed

A lot of people talk about self-care, and I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before, but what does it mean, really? Is it going to get your nails done or treating yourself to an ice cream? Maybe spending the afternoon going for a walk and reading a book? Is it heading to that yoga class you love? Yes on all counts. Self-care is defined as “the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health.” That can be interpreted in many different ways. Basically, whatever you do to energize yourself and re-focus is considered to be a form of self-care.

For the record, I am not an expert on self-care, nor do I practice it and make time for it nearly as much as I should. The thing I will say, though, is that I definitely notice when my self-care is slipping, and it’s not pretty. I start feeling very drained and irritable. My temper gets shorter and my patience diminishes with everyone I interact with. My mood really suffers, which means my life really suffers, along with the people I care about the most.

Motherhood & Self-Care

If you’re like any busy mom (and you are, because we’re ALL busy), then much of your time is spent on everyone and everything else but yourself. You’re consumed by an important project at work. Maybe helping your sister through a crisis. Taking care of the kids. Handling the chores. Working on your relationship, and on, and on, and on. So where do you fit into all of this? Good question, right?

The truth is, most moms (myself included) are not taking the time and doing what they need to take care of themselves. There have been times when I’ve let months (yes, months) go by before I realize that I haven’t taken any time for myself. You might be reading this thinking, “Me, too. But I’m so busy with everything else. It’s just the season of life I’m in. Things will be different when the kids get a little older.” Sounds legit, right? WRONG.

If you don’t set the precedent and take the time you need now, this is the pattern your life will fall into, and it will be even harder to change the pattern later on. Now listen, there’s no reason to punish yourself for not exercising your self-care up to this point, but it is something worth looking at.

A new way to look at your Self-Care

So why is your self-care so important? Simply put, you are the most important person in your family, and you need to treat yourself that way. As a mother, you always want to give everything you have to your children and your family, but if you’re not fueling yourself, how will you have the energy to do that?

Think of it like a car. If you keep driving and driving, eventually, the gas tank is going to be empty. If you want to keep going, you’re going to need to fill it up. It’s the same with you. If you keep giving and giving, but never replenish, pretty soon there will be nothing else left to give.

So what do you do now?

Now that you understand what self-care is and why it is so important, we need to figure out how to incorporate it into your life. We need to shift your mindset and change the way you see yourself. You need to look at yourself as a priority. So how do you do that? How about this – instead of trying to fit your self-care into your already busy schedule, you instead schedule all of your responsibilities around your self-care? Block out time to take care of yourself and schedule everything else around that. Make everything else fit into YOUR schedule, instead of the other way around.

I know you have responsibilities and non-negotiables – we all do. So how about making your self-care a non-negotiable? If you decide to take an hour a week, or 30 minutes a day and devote that time just to you, the rest of the world isn’t going to come to a screeching halt. Not only will you be happier, but everyone around you will be as well, because they’re going to get the best version of you!

From now on, look at it like this – Your day is what happens between your self-care, as opposed to fitting your self-care into your day. Your job is to take care of yourself. If you do that, everything else will fall into place.

If you’re having trouble prioritizing yourself, you can check out my post titled, “How to make yourself a priority.”