5 reasons self care needs to be a priority (not a luxury)

What has self care got to do with running a successful business or helping more dogs you might think… 

And the answer is A LOT. Far more than we give it credit for. 

When you fly, you’re told you should fit your own oxygen mask before you attempt to help somebody else with theirs. And that is a good principle for life.

We need to make sure that we are looking after ourselves, that we have the resilience, the strength and the skills that we need before we can start helping others.

If we’re feeling stressed, for instance, we won't be able to help our client or their dog feel less stressed. Whereas if we’re feeling relaxed and calm and able to cope with situations, we're much better positioned to help them do the same.

So, let’s explore self care and why making it a priority isn’t a luxury, but a priority. 

5 reasons self care is important 

1. Self care is key to our wellbeing

If we want to be comfortable and fit and healthy, we need to pay attention to our well-being, which means self care. Taking care of yourself can help you manage stress, increase your happiness, and lower your risk of illness. Meaning you’re in a much stronger position to show up and help others.

2. Self care helps us keep perspective

It helps us to be able to see the reality of our lives. So rather than getting a perspective which is out of kilter, self care helps us to keep things in perspective, to balance the good with the bad, to be able to see the reality of our situation much more clearly and to deal with our Inner Critic and faulty thinking that often creeps in when we’re not taking care of ourselves.

3. Self care is key to resilience

Resilience is our ability to deal with stress and bounce back from difficult situations or experiences. 

Self care is a big part of how we can build our resilience so we are able to more quickly recover from setbacks. 

Power-ups (small daily positive experiences) can boost our vagal tone, which is key to managing stress and building resilience.

4. Self care helps keeps us strong under pressure

We will all face pressure in life and business, we can't completely avoid pressure or difficult situations. But what we can do is provide ourselves with the resources that we need to be able to handle those situations, to be able to stay strong, when things are challenging us. Self care is a critical part of that.

5. Self care helps us to avoid burnout

This is a particularly important thing for us as professionals, because when you're dealing with other people's difficult situations, if you don't look after yourself, you are likely to end up burning out.

That goes for people who are working in rescues, for trainers, for anyone dealing with people's or dog’s issues in any way. You need to practise self care to protect yourself from burnout.

But what is self care?

Self care is sometimes seen as a bit of self-indulgence, something that people do if they're avoiding difficult things. But that's not what it is at all.

Self care is about prioritising your own needs. This doesn't mean that they’ll always come first, but it means that they don't always come last. We need to prioritise our own needs and make sure that they’re being met as well as the needs of others.

We’re all very good at advocating for and championing dogs having their needs met - but if we want to be able to do that effectively, we must first take care of ourselves. 

Self care begins with considering how well we are getting our needs met.  

To understand this, we can start by looking at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which shows us the needs all humans have. 

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to guide self care

The needs shown in this diagram build on each other. So you start at the bottom with your basic physiological needs - and progress upwards. 

Physiological needs include breathing, food, sex, sleep, homeostasis (the balance in your body), excretion etc.

If these needs aren't met, you don't go any further. So people who are not sure where the next meal is coming from, don't spend lots of time worrying about their self-esteem or whether they feel connected to somebody. They are worried about where they're getting the next meal from. 

If those needs are met, you can move on to the next level: safety and security. 

This is to do with how secure and safe you feel. That might be in terms of your physical body, your employment, your resources, your family, your home, your health and so on. After your physiological needs, safety and security needs are paramount.

Once you feel safe, then you can start being concerned about other needs like love and belonging. 

This may be being part of a family unit of some form, friendship, intimacy or connection with other people or animals. Love and belonging are very important but we only concern ourselves with that, if our physiological and safety needs are met.

Then you have the self-esteem needs: 

Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, other people respecting you and what you do etc. 

And finally, the self-actualization needs, which include creativity, problem-solving, spontaneity, developing yourself and learning.

We can categorise the first four as being deficiency needs. 

These are things that you must have or your life is deficient. The final set of needs are about your growth. 

So in terms of self care, we're concerned first with our basic needs, then our psychological needs, and then we want to grow and enjoy fulfilment.

What self care isn’t

It’s worth talking about what self care isn’t, because it’s sometimes reduced to having a bubble bath every now and then, eating chocolate, or having a massage. Self care isn’t just treating yourself or going to expensive spas!

You also don't have to spend money to do self care. 

Self care is certainly not just something else you put on your 'to do' list so that you can tick it off. 

"Self care is building a life you don't need to regularly escape from". Brianna Wiest

Self care is sometimes seen as escapism and pretending that things are better than they are. But it's the opposite of that. It's actually creating your life to be something you don't need or want to escape from.

This has to include self awareness, self-acceptance and self-compassion, which we explore in more depth in our free Masterclass here: 5 vital self care strategies for work-life balance and business success.

Practical self care

Another part of self care is making choices for your own well being, including those that seem to be against other people's wishes. 

That is not being awkward or difficult. It's just saying that this is not in my best interests or not a priority right now. 

Self care isn’t always fun and easy things, it can also include looking after your physical health, your mental space, your connections and the relationships you have. 

It's looking after all of those things, to protect and grow your own wellbeing.

What are examples of self care?

Self care is developing daily habits of regular care and attention, things that will make us feel cared for and able to do what we need to do. 

These will be different for all of us but here are some ideas to get you started:  

• Eat a nice home cooked meal

• Walk in nature 

• Play sports

• Journal

• Sleep

• Meditate

• Clean or tidy up if you need order

• Read a book

• Meet with friends

• Ask for support

• Take a social media break

• Phone a friend or family member

• Sit outside in the sunshine

• Listen to music

• Dance

• Do some colouring or drawing

• Write

• Go to the gym

• Play a game

• Learn something new

Try making a list of ten things that would power up your self care tank - and commit to doing 2-3 of them every day. 

Barriers to self care

You might think all of this sounds great, but deep down is there a niggle that you won’t prioritise yourself? So, let’s talk about what stops us looking after ourselves. 

1. Negative self talk

Listening to your Inner Critic - the voice inside you, which tells you you're rubbish, you're useless, you're hopeless, you can't do it. When we don't challenge that self talk, we are putting a barrier in our way for self care. 

We cannot look after ourselves if we are allowing ourselves to be downtrodden by our Inner Critic.

2. The perception self care is selfish

Whether conscious or unconscious, there might be an underlying feeling that to be a good person, you should be caring about other people, not focusing on yourself. 

Self care is the opposite of being selfish because it’s saying, “I am going to look after myself so that I have the reserves to give to you.” This in turn makes sure you keep on topping up your own reserves so that you can continue to keep on helping others.

3. Lack of time

None of us truly lacks time, but we do have things we don't prioritise. So when we say we haven't got time to do something, what we usually mean is, it's not my priority to do that. 

If you really want to do something, you will do it. So we need to make sure we are prioritising our self care.

4. It feels pointless or impractical

Self care can feel a bit 'out there' or not very practical. It's all about "lovey doveyness" to yourself or it's just 'treating yourself' - but this is a big misunderstanding. 

Self care is actually about self-compassion, about prioritising your own wellbeing and looking after your environment and your health. Once you recognise those things, then you can see that it's anything but pointless. It's a really important and critical part of life.
 

Self care checklist

Self care can cover physical wellbeing, social connections, mental health, emotional wellbeing and even spiritual wellbeing. To make sure we follow through and put these things into practice, it can help to schedule them like we do for the things we do for others!  

Where there are practical things that you want to do, like exercise or clearing up or cooking good food, build that into your schedule.  

Build breaks into your schedule too, so that you're making sure that you're getting time to just rest and reflect.

1. Be kind to yourself.  

Treat yourself with the same compassion and kindness that you treat your dog with and you'll probably do ok.

Be forgiving of yourself. Give yourself a break. Let yourself off from the pressure to be perfect. And recognise that you are enough as you are now. You may have needs that you want to grow and you want to develop but you are enough as you are.

2. Value your health, both mental and physical. 

Listen to your body and if it says you're feeling weak, then give it a chance to rest. Take time out. And similarly for mental health. If you need timeout, if you need support, then you make sure you get that support. 

Whatever your physical and mental health needs are, self care means that you value those, that you listen to your body, and that you get whatever help and support you need.

A good question to ask yourself regularly is "what do I need right now"?

3. Put exercise on the agenda

Exercise is really important to our physical and mental health. It encourages the release of brain chemicals that naturally improve mood, clarify thinking and increase focus. It also helps us to stay physically healthy. 

4. Prioritise rest 

Getting enough sleep is important. How much is enough will depend on us - we all have different needs for sleep but we need to do what is necessary to make sure we get that rest. That might mean that we unplug earlier, that we do some meditation, or that we do something to help ourselves relax before we go to bed.

5. Eat good food 

We are good at looking at our dog's needs in this area, but we're not so good at looking at our own needs. So be as conscious of your own diet as you would be of your dog's diet. Think about what is nutritional for you, what will be good for your body - as we all know how much that influences the rest of our physical and mental health. 

6. Create calm spaces 

Think about your environment and create an environment that works for you, that is appropriate for your sense of well being. Again, for dogs we look at what makes them feel comfortable, at ease and relaxed - are you doing the same for yourself?

7. Find a way to express creativity. 

This can be something artistic or making something with your hands. It could be cooking, writing, making music or even reading or listening to music. Whatever works for you - but humans are creative by nature, so we need to think about where we are expressing our creativity. Think of it as your own enrichment! 

Consider that you are "a human being, not a human doing" (Wayne Dyer)

We so often focus on doing. Society focuses on doing. What have you done today? What are you doing this weekend? We tend to have this enormous focus on doing. 

We are actually human beings. And just being is an important part of self care. 

You can create a 'to be' list. So rather than your 'to do' list, which is all the actions that you're going to take, think about what helps you to think or create or reflect? 

What puts you in touch with how you feel, how you connect to the world? 

What makes you feel connected to the world and to yourself or to other people? 

Write those things down and create a 'to be' list; then make sure that you take time to be with those things. 

This might be walking in nature. It might be meditation. It might be relaxing with a friend. It might be gratitude journaling. It might be creating something or taking a break from technology or reading for pleasure. Or just doing nothing. 

So rather than 'to do', think about 'to be'.
 

Give yourself Power-Ups

Finally, we can’t talk about self care without introducing you to daily power-ups. Jane McGonigal describes a power-up as "any positive action you can take easily that creates a quick moment of pleasure, strength, courage or connection for you."

Power-ups are a really good starting point for self care because if you're doing regular daily power-ups, then you are regularly doing things that make you feel more powerful, stronger, more connected, fitter, more healthy, and happier. 

If you commit to daily power-ups, then you are practising self care in lots of little ways on a daily basis and that will all mount up!  

Our free Masterclass will help you identify your power-ups as well as other ideas for prioritising your self care and wellbeing. Get access free today. 

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