Uplevel Your Self-Care

Here I am again, wanting to look at self-care.  Any ideas why?  I think it is mostly because so many of us allow it to fall by the wayside.  If we think it is a good idea, we sometimes put it off until we have time.  In the past, I've discussed getting very intentional with our self-care plan, making a list and then organizing and implementing the list.  I've even gotten on a soapbox about it (but then again, I think I was talking to myself more than anything). I like to have a marker in my year where I really evaluate my self-care.  Monday is my birthday.....that makes for a great time to look at my self-care plan, evaluate how I've done, and see if I can uplevel my self-care.  Some like to use the new year or their birthday.  But you can use any date that makes sense to you.  You can evaluate it right now and choose the beginning of the school year (which is coming up) as your year marker....even if you have no reason for the beginning of the school year to be significant in your life. I've made a list, using the acronym EVOLVE, to get you going as you look at your self-care plan.

• Evaluate--evaluate how you've done over the past year.
• Validate--validate that you have been doing the best you can...even if that means you've done nothing.  Something amazing within yourself kcked in and got you to right here.
• Organize--organize yourself, at least a bit.  Get your calendar and a notebook handy.  Make the lists of ideas and categorize that list.
• Level up--How can you level up your self-care?  This is so dependent on where you are.  Leveling up might look like starting some kind of self-care practice.  Leveling up might be adding more regularity.  Leveling up might be going for something a bit bigger periodically.
• Visualize--take 30 seconds and visualize what your life will be like in one week when you are taking care of yourself.  Take another 30 seconds and visualize a month from now.  Take another 30 seconds and visualize where you will be in 3 months.  Add one final 30 seconds of one year from now.  This 2 minutes might be the most powerful part of this process.  Don't skip it.
• Execute--let's execute our new plan.