If you’ve ever been on YouTube long enough then you are probably familiar with the word, “self-care”.

Upon mentioning the word self-care you probably imagined a person doing skincare, you know putting on a face mask or doing her nails or taking a bubble bath with soft music on the background, scented candles and a good book (I so need that right now).

Self-care is not exactly that. That is self-maintenance.

Glamourous Self-Care

Self-care is not as glamorous as YouTubers make it seem. It’s not so nice and bubbly and peaceful. Most of the time self-care is not so enjoyable and it’s mostly messy.

The glamourous self-care is often filled with material objects that you need to purchase in order to have that Pinterest looking self-care day. Gee, I wonder why??

I used to think that self-care needs to look pretty and peaceful and insta worthy. I used to think that relaxing in front of a TV and watch a two hour with a bowl of snacks was self-care. (Want to know a secret, it’s not) that’s self-indulgence.

What Is REAL Self-Care??

Self–care is any activity that we  deliberately do in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.

Real self-care does not look amazing, it’s not always video worthy or pic worthy. It’s not Pinterest looking.

Real self-care is putting energy into proactively supporting the version you’d like to become.

Self-care is doing something that’ll benefit you in the long run. It’s doing something that’ll help you physically, mentally or emotionally.

Sometimes real self-care doesn’t feel like you’re taking care of yourself at all. Sometimes it’s scary but in the long run it always pays out.

Self-care includes things like setting boundaries, speaking up when those boundaries are broken (sounds scary), working out (sounds difficult), getting outside your comfort zone (please! Please! Put me out of this misery), cleaning your space (sounds like hard work), asking for help when you need (gee, I still have my pride).

See, it’s all cupcakes and roses.

Ways You Can Take Care Of yourself :

✳️ DON’T SELF-INDULGE TOO MUCH :

I know how lovely spending most of your days in the same outfit, in the same couch with lots of food and wifi sounds. Honestly, if given the chance I would kill to spend most of my days like that.

Be honest with yourself, how do you feel after doing all those things?? Do you feel amazing and fulfilled and productive??

Now look, I know that self-indulgence can be good for you and feel amazing once in a while but it mustn’t be something that you spend most of your time doing. Draw the line between self-care and self-indulgence.

✳️ PRIORITISE YOUR FUTURE SELF :

Self-care is mostly about prioritising your future self. It’s about envisioning your future best self and taking action to be them.

Prioritising your future self is really thinking about your future self and finding what you can you do now that your future self will appreciate. This then leads you to do tasks with delayed gratification such as working out or studying.

Start doing small things in your daily life that your future self will appreciate, not your five years older future self but your one hour older or twenty four years older future self.

Small things like picking an outfit the day before, ironing your outfit in advance. Start doing things that’ll make your future self’s life a little better. That right there is self-care.

✳️ EXPERIMENT :

Self-care is not a one size fits all game. What works for someone else might not work for you. Don’t be afraid to try new things in order to find your thing.

✳️ SELF-CARE IS MESSY :

Waking up at 4am everyday is not a piece of cake, burning your butt out daily with workouts is not sexy, breaking down sometimes is not cute.

Sometimes it’s just not cute, okay. It’s just not insta worthy.

✳️ DON’T WAIT TO BURN OUT :

Don’t wait to hit rock bottom and to not be able to get out of bed to start taking care of yourself. Don’t wait for your mind to be a battle field before you actually start considering looking after you. Start now, find ways in which you can incorporate self-care in your life and do it.

✳️ CHOOSE YOURSELF :

You knew this was coming. The biggest clichè in self-development. Be yourself everybody else is already taken.

I feel so unoriginal writing this. I mean like ewhh!!

Ewww!! I feel so unoriginal writing this.

At least I didn’t say “be yourself” or “do you” but honestly, do you. Put yourself first and always choose you.

There’s a reason it called “self” care not “others” care.

Thanks for reading. Remember to take care of yourself. I love you♥️♥️