More than just a mani/pedi day
Posted: January 17, 2018
When I hear self care the first thought I have is yeah a pedicure would be nice. I don't know about you but I forget that self-care is far more than getting a mani/pedi on occasion and it is not just for women.
Working in the social work field I am surrounded by people that know all about self-care and we advise our clients how important it is. Then, we forgot that we too need to care for ourselves. Self care is smaller tasks that we often forget. How often do we work through our lunch? How about eating foods that are good for us? Are we sleeping at night? Are we exercising? Do we have activities outside work that we enjoy?
While it may seem like working through lunch is not such a bad thing, or you have so much to do that you need to work through lunch, realistically you will get more done if you take the time and walk away and take your lunch. If you stay up all night thinking about work or because you are anxious you will not be as effective. When we don't take care of ourselves we are actually setting ourselves up for failure.
I wonder how many people are burned out at their jobs, or on the verge of burn out because they have failed to meet their own basic needs. I wonder how many managers and supervisors have encouraged a culture of lack of self-care and then wonder why performance has gone done or they have lost all their best employees?
Where are you at? What self-care tasks do you need to add to your routine? I know I need to get better about taking my lunch and walking away from my desk.