Quick Guide to Ultimate Self Care: Knowing Your Why

Taking care of yourself should be on top of your priority list, but oftentimes it is overlooked or put on the back burner altogether. If our top priority should be ourselves why do we tend to treat it as a last thought? The reason for this is often the same as why we start something and end up quitting before reaching our goals (i.e. dieting). The answer is because we lose sight of our “why”. Why did we start this diet? Why did we choose this career path? Why did I start that project? When we start a new journey we are full of excitement and enthusiasm but often as time goes by we lose some interest. It is important to know your why when starting out and revisit it often in order to keep the excitement going. Today we will discuss knowing and revisiting your why, living what you love and making meaningful choices along the way in order to keep you and your self care a top priority in your life. 

KNOWING YOUR WHY

The first step is digging deep to learn your why. When starting anything you should know why you are doing it. You should also challenge yourself to look beyond the simple reason why and get down to the deeper meaning of why you are doing something. For example, pretend you have decided to go on a diet to lose 25 pounds. Ask yourself why do I want to diet? The simple answer may be to lose weight but if you dig deeper you may realize that since gaining weight you have less energy, more health problems and feel less confident. These would be the “whys” of wanting to lose weight.

Once you determine your “whys” take a little bit of time to write them out. Write out what your ideal life looks like with your goal, simple why, and deeper why all achieved. Once you have this written out go back and revisit it. I recommend at least once or twice daily. This keeps what your goals are and why you are working toward them fresh in your mind. While writing out your ideal life also set goals for yourself, both short term and long term. This reinforces what you are trying to achieve. When writing goals make sure they are attainable and have a timeframe for completion. These goals should also be revisited daily.

I have a notebook where the first page is my ideal life. I write in detail what I want my life to look like, where I want to live, my career path, my salary, etc. This helps to manifest your future into the universe and gives you a picture of what you are working toward. Then I write out long term goals- one year, five year, ten year. I usually write several goals for each time frame. We actually sit down as a family and do this on New Years Eve every year (and also review our goals from the previous year). Then I write out two to three monthly goals with a due date. I usually try to do one personal, one professional and one health. These monthly goals are tied to my long term goals and my ideal life.

The more you revisit your ideal life plan and your goals the more you will focus on working toward them. 

LIVE WHAT YOU LOVE

A part of true self care is living what you love. Life should be enjoyable. Of course, hard times will come and go but when life is enjoyable it makes it easier to overcome those hard times. Therefore, it is important to live what you love.

When you are writing out your ideal life make sure to include all those things you love both big and small. Do you like traveling? Maybe part of your ideal life is to travel regularly. Maybe you love painting. Your ideal life could include an art room where you paint art for your house. Really the skys the limit when it comes to your ideal life. One of my favorite quotes is “if you believe it you can achieve it”. Including the things you love into your ideal life plan and your goals will help keep you excited about working toward them. You can also add rewards to meeting your monthly goals. This acts as a positive reinforcement to keep achieving your goals. Although working on goals is work, it does not need to be tedious. Creating a life you love should be just as fun and exciting as living that life will be!

MAKING MEANINGFUL CHOICES

Learning your why for the things you do allows you to make meaningful choices toward achieving your dreams. Also revisiting your ideal life and goals multiple times daily keeps it fresh in your mind which also drives your choices to align with your goals. By making meaningful choices you are actively working toward your goals with each choice. These choices build and build and build and ultimately lead to success. For example, if your goal is to lose weight but you don’t feel like working out or eating healthier items by reading your goals and your why for wanting to achieve the goals it will help push you to make meaningful choices and resist temptations. The choices we make daily are the little stepping stones toward our ideal life. Without meaningful choices our hopes and dreams fall from within our reach. 

CONCLUSION

At the end of the day self care is more important than we sometimes allow it to me. Make sure you take some time to dig deep into yourself in order to determine your why in all the things you do. Declare a life that you want and live what you love by making continuous meaningful choices. And even when you fall off track or slack revisit your ideal life plan, your goals and your whys to remind yourself why the hard work and determination is worth it! Remember, “if you can believe it, you can achieve it!”

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