Busy? Yeah right.
Trust me. You’ll always be busy and that’s will be your common excuse.
Now, is it really possible to accommodate other things to your daily routine if you find it hard to do more since you think you’re busy? Of course it’s POSSIBLE.
We are in the period that we put ourselves as our least priority. Guilty? Me too. We put at the back our minds the things that we deserve simply because you think it’s not worth it if you do it for yourself.
It will always be them,
It will always be her,
I will always be him,
But if it’s me? Nah. Nevermind because I’m ok.
Ask yourself if you are really ok to begin with. The more you restrict yourself on the things that you deserve, that more you’ll feel the regrets of everything that you do. Self care is not being selfish. It’s an act of considering yourself as one of your priority in life.
To simply help you on doing simple things that can give yourself what it deserves, here’s the list of options you can do:
- Plan a daily affirmation List.
“Be mindful. Be grateful. Be positive. Be true. Be kind.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
If you’re one of the people who usually start the day with hopes that you just want it to be over, this thing can help you change your mindset for the whole day. It’s like tricking your mind that you’re looking forward to the day, and you’ll see how light gradually consumes you.
You can simply write down three or more positive statements that you think you badly need. Some of the examples are the following:
Read and state this statement every morning so you can divert your feelings into positive one right away. This is a simple strategy for you to start your day so can somehow feel light and excited.
I started this last month and it’s very effective since I started to look forward on what the day will offer me. It’s like having a cue before starting the day that will help me shift my mood into positive one.
2. Do the 4-7-8 Breath.
Doing a breathing exercise once in while can help you to improve a lot of things. from increasing your focus, releasing your stress and relaxing your mind. It’s not necessarily you need to do it every single day, but if you find time to do it then go for it.
To use the 4-7-8 technique, focus on the following breathing pattern:
- empty the lungs of air
- breathe in quietly through the nose for 4 seconds
- hold the breath for a count of 7 seconds
- exhale forcefully through the mouth, pursing the lips and making a “whoosh” sound, for 8 seconds
- repeat the cycle up to 4 times
We are all guilty on spending most of our time digitally. Every time there’s a spare time for us to do something, we automatically look for our mobiles and without knowing we spend hours surfing on the internet. Doing Breathing exercises can help us to divert this unhealthy habit.
You can start to do it at night so you can have an interval like1o minutes before you go to sleep. This may also help your mind to be at ease after a long stressful day.
3. Start your day with a smile.
If this sounds impossible to you, now is the right time to make it possible. Our mind is working on its own accord and you can try to manipulate it in a good way that can help you to divert your negative feelings into positive one.
Smiling is just a small gestures/action that gives you a lot of benefits. From physical, mental and even your emotional aspect this small movement of your lips can do a magic for you.
The greatest self is a peaceful smile, that always sees the world smiling back.
― Bryant H. McGill
Of course, staying up late and the stress from your work will not let you go even when you wake up, so to break its continuous attachment to you, starting your day with a smile will not be so hard to do.
Why not try once? For sure it will become your habit once you continuously do it. So rather than seeing it as a task, it will become a common thing for you to do in the morning.
4. Have a heathy breakfast.
If you tend to skip your meals most of the time, fix your habit and start to have a healthy breakfast. If you’re a busy and usually have an early morning shift, you can simply grab some fresh fruits and yoghurts so you can make your own healthy smoothie that you can take on your work.
Most of us tend to skip breakfast without knowing that that’s the most important meal of the day. If you’re guilty on doing it, this is the right time for you to put this task in your daily routine.
It will not only provide you the energy throughout the day, it can also benefit you on taking care of yourself more above anything else. Let’s just see it as one of your “self-care activity” that you should do.
5. Plan a day for your Digital Detox.
Have you ever think of not using your mobile and laptop for the whole day?
Can you imagine yourself surviving without checking your social media accounts?
Can you really live without checking your mobile the whole day?
This sounds really challenging and I know most of us can’t do it. Simply because of the presence of different social media applications that really caught our interest. From Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube and even online games, we can’t really get away from it.
Actually, I’m in the process of doing that and I can assure that it’s really hard doing it in the beginning. Since we also use social media as our way to communicate with our love ones, it’s probably impossible for us not to use it the whole day.
What I do is gradually do it one app at a time. What I think is if I will take it slow, i’ll eventually get used to it. I set Thursday as the day that the only application that I’ll used is facebook messenger and mangareader. I don’t allow myself to use any other social media applications other than that on that day.
At first, of course I failed so many times, but eventually I was able to get used to it and realized the following things:
- I find more time to do other things.
- I finish my to do list earlier than before.
- I spend less time using my mobile (which is impossible at first)
- It made me more productive by doing more task that will help me the next day.
- I sleep earlier than the usual.
Finding it hard to do at first is normal for everyone to feel, but for me the most important thing I realized is doing digital detox is like going back to our life before social media. These thing in not even a task for us before because social media is not that as hype unlike now. I found peace from enjoying my own world and joy from physically communicating with the people around me.
6. Have a break and enjoy the weather.
Being with the nature is never a bad option for you to unwind and let go of your stress. By just having a minutes of appreciation on whatever you see around you from trees, grass, mountains, seas can do a big thing to lighten up your mood.
For anyone who’s working in the offices, for sure working long hours facing your computer can make you feel more stressful. So have a break and make time for you to go outside and have a 5-10 minutes walk. If you plan to have your coffee, have it while looking in your office window and see whatever the world wanted to show you.
In this busy era, we all deserve to have a break. A 10 minutes for yourself is enough for your whole body to know that care for it. Work will never end so your body needs to have the energy, inspiration and motivation for you to accomplish task.
“Give yourself what you badly deserves.“
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7. Do a 30 Minutes workout.
Having an outlet of energy is like a time to release anything that you’re carrying the whole day. Its like you’ll divert you’re usual routine to a something new that will help you to look forward every day.
This will only be effective if you’ll let go of your excuses. Of course in the beginning the common response of people upon hearing this suggestion is
- “I don’t have time.”
- “I’m busy.”
- “I’m tired.”
Sounds familiar right? Because I’d been there as well. I keep saying this lame excuses since I really can’t find the right time to do it. For me, I would rather take rest than to make me suffer after my working hours. That’s common to everyone but it’s not really acceptable. Before you do something, you need to have the right approach first.
Think of it as an extension of your relaxation and not extension of work. The first period will be the challenging one but if you got used to it already, your body will always look forward to it.
8. Write down all the positive things happened the whole day.
One thing that you can only keep with you once you died are your memories. So as long as you live, write down all the important things happened in your life so whenever you wanted to reminisce something, it will be very easy for you to go back in the past.
What I did is I have a Memories Log every month wherein I’ll right down all the things happened in that month. It’s not necessary to tell the whole scenario, one to three words are enough for you to remember those things. By having that, I can always look back whenever I want to.
It also serves as a reminder for me of whatever happen in the past, because though our mind has its own magical ways, we can’t remember every single thing that happen in our lives.
If you think that this is not worth it to do, you’ll eventually see its importance once you grow old. You’ll came to know that material things can only give you temporary happiness and the memories will give you a constant feelings every time you think of it.
As early as now, all I can say is to do it. Trust me, It will be worth it.
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