Self-care is very popular right now - and rightly so. But most self-care advice actually makes your life worse.
Think about your life right now:
What's your biggest stressor?
What causes you the most anxiety?
What is the thing holding you back?
For many people - myself included - it's the feeling of being stretched too thin. There are so many things to do in a given day, so many things to take care of, to get done, to look after, to check off, that life almost becomes unbearable.
I remember a time in my life when I thought caring about nothing was the worst feeling - and it is a terrible, empty feeling. I later learned that it can feel equally terrible to have many things that you care about, but not have the time to effectively care for them.
I remember getting to a place in my life where I had all "the things" - a career, a family, friends, a home, etc - but I still felt depressed and anxious. I had all the good things but they felt inaccessible. It's like a had made an account for "the good life," but I just couldn't remember the password.
And here's where it ties into self-care; all the advice I received was about doing more, adding different things, shifting the balance of my life. But I was doing things I loved. I was with people I cared about. I enjoyed my job. I just didn't have enough time for it all. I was in burnout.
Adding in self-care spa day's, meditation, or a new hobby to "feel better" wasn't useful advice.
The major problem with self-care advice is that it doesn't provide you with actual resources. It just gives you a list of more things to do. And if you're stretched too thing, more to-do is the last thing you need.
The answer to this problem is actually shifting the way you look at self-care.
I put together an entire breakdown of how I approach time allocation in a way that has allowed me to have less stress and more time all while having exponentially more to do than when I felt burned out.
It's a longer video of mine, but the feedback has been outstanding. I know it will feel like "one more thing" to-do. It's a resource that will add value to your life and you'll see how just watching the video is an actual step to the result you want.
If you want to skip my backstory, you can use this link to start later in the video.
- Scott
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