Defining Legitimate Self-Care: Commitment to a Process to Get Better
Self-care may be the word of the year for 2021 when it’s all said in done. However, as with most things in pop-culture, what the media promotes as popular for everyone is good for no one. In the case of self-care, the popular way to talk about it is to use it as a synonym for being selfish.
- Putting your priorities over your responsibilities while expecting no consequences.
- Working less and expecting more.
This is not self-care. Self-care is more than sleeping more, working less, going to the spa, and taking vacations. Don’t get me wrong, those activities are useful for mental health, but those activities alone won’t make you mentally healthy.
Legitimate self-care is dealing with the consequences of your priorities, not prioritizing avoiding consequences. Legitimate self-care requires facing fears, not running from fear. Above all, legitimate self-care is working to get better at the game, not working to make the game easier.
Self-Care Requires Getting Better with Mental Skills
In all cases, this requires learning new mental skills. Mental skills you can’t learn by sleeping, working less, going to the spa, and taking vacations. Some of those mental skills include:
- Improving mental toughness by reframing emotions that have a negative impact.
- Conditioning your thoughts to instinctively have positive/neutral thoughts and emotions instead of negative thoughts and emotions.
- Building confidence by eliminating worries about unrealistic expectations as well as things out of your control and focusing instead on those things within your control.
- Managing intensity and anxiety.
- Having a meaningful “why” for everything you do.
- Strategically using feedback to improve how your respond to failure.
- Exhibiting self-awareness of your strengths and weaknesses and then utilizing your strengths to overcome your weaknesses.
- Establishing a source of self-worth and self-esteem that is task oriented and not ego oriented.
- Consistent use of routines and healthy habits.
- Clarifying goals to direct your focus to the most important things and avoid distractions.
Whether it’s getting help from a licensed therapist or a professional coach, committing to a process of getting better is a must for self-care. Anything less than putting in the work to get better is not legitimate self-care. It’s self-sabotage.