The TAKE-CARE tracker
So often we want to create new good habits but beware… this could just be an indirect way of saying “I’m not good enough… I need to change ‘me’ to be valuable.” If this is the motivation for new habits then they will never last. We can’t build someone up by breaking them down, devaluing or even worse, humiliating them. All you will achieve is a greater need to escape the cycle of self-loathing whole or parts of yourself. New Years resolutions are often about transformation and sometimes about achieving the ideal, the unrealistic, the perfect and in many ways a lack of acceptance and rejection of SELF.
NEW HABITS should make us feel More SPECIAL, More WHOLESOME and MORE valued!
A Common feature in this treadmill-life is that we forget about our needs. We are far too busy to give ourselves a break, to smell the roses, to have a cup of coffee without looking at our phone, even too busy to look after our medical needs like going to the dentist or what about that little mole that worries us every now and then. Ok: this needs to change!!! We need habits that are Nourishing and Kind to your soul.
Lets place ourselves on the weekly ‘take care tracker’
- START SLOWLY: allow yourself to slowly build up to it. So if you need to see the doctor and all you do is book an appointment for the end of the month – that’s a big win! If you want to have a healthy diet going from ‘eat everything’ to cutting out TONS is really tough. All or nothing seems so punitive. Maybe initially you could just introduce one healthy juice into your life instead of taking anything out.
- MAKE SPACE FOR YOU IN YOUR LIFE: Build your nourishing habit around your existing lifestyle. Such as, “as soon as I place my children’s breakfast on the table I will make myself a green juice full of all-the-good-stuff” Or: Go to the cafe after work on Monday for a break before going home.
- BE PREPARED FOR YOU: I watch parents organise their children’s extra-mural/ co-curricular activities within an inch of precision. They have the basketball outfit in the car, the snack, the juice, the candies (for extra energy), the hairband, the tennis runners, the racket etc. So if you can make it easy for children to flow into their activities seamlessly, why not do the same for you. So make a healthy lunch/snack for yourself, put your swimming bag in the car, load your audiobook, buy yourself an external speaker so you can listen to music from your phone, place your walking shoes with your water bottle in your trunk. Basically make it easy for you to take care of your needs.
- KINDNESS IN ACTION: If we want to take care of ourselves, we need to be mindful of what we would like to do and what is actually taking place every week. It is not easy to place yourself on the agenda especially if you are used to putting yourself on the back burner to get to later. Kindness in action means that when we tally the weekly totals (see spreadsheet) we don’t berate ourselves for not having completed the task (eg: Swim 3x a week) instead we look at why it was hard to commit to ourselves, we commend ourselves for the movement forward (Swam 1x this week – YAY) and we try to place ourselves in our lives a little more the next week.
- ADJUST THE GOALS IN THE TAKE CARE TRACKER: Each week we will get to know our selves a little better which means we will get to know our needs a little better and also our ability to achieve our ‘self-care’ goals. This will help to tweak them so that they are aligned with what is healthy, wholesome and helpful in our lives.
The Take-care Tracker can help you to explore and find 10 new habits that would be nourishing for you, to set your intention of how many times a week you think you could do it, to see at a glance what is happening from day to day and to reflect at the end of the week about how much space you were able to make in the week for you. Most importantly it’s way to learn how to place yourself in your life by being mindful and being present!
Author: Debra©Psych in a Box
Psych in a Box 