Self Care For Busy Entrepreneurs

What is Self Care & Why Isn't it Just Indulgence?

Ahhh self care – a saying that easily slips off the tongue, and widely promoted across social media, but is it actually something that everyone should make time for?

I remember when I first started to talk about self care. It was when I was training to be a therapist. I hadn't paid attention to it before then, just assumed it was some new-age-yoga-kind-of-thing…

Tell me I'm not the only one?! Maybe the Gen X in me missed this term, but to be honest, when I did hear about it, I just dismissed it as jargon talk.

But, once I actually understood that it literally just means making time to take care of yourself, and that a simple walk, or a mid afternoon nap was a form of ‘self care', it became part of my personal dictionary as well!

Self care isn't reserved only for the wealthy who may visit a spa every week, or non-busy folk, it needs to be part of everyone's way of life.

Life can be incredibly busy. It can throw curveballs out of nowhere, and the ingrained belief that you need to work hard to achieve success, means that as humans, we don't take care of ourselves anywhere near enough.

Self care isn't self indulgence – it's looking after yourself, pushing for a work / life balance, holding boundaries, taking a break and chatting to a friend. Yes, it may also mean a calming massage or a trip to the spa – but self care can also be simple, quick and free!

*Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something via the link, I may receive a small commission. This doesn't affect the price you pay.

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What is Self Care?

Self-care will look different for everyone. In a nutshell, it's about prioritising your own mental, emotional, and physical well-being. It's to ensure that you are taking the time to care for yourself in a way that supports your ability to do more than just survive, or just manage every day.

As a busy female coach, therapist, business owner; self care plays a vital role in preventing burnout, managing stress responses, developing a positive work / life balance, and promoting a healthier lifestyle overall.

How to Prioritise Self Care

One of the biggest challenges with creating a self care routine is prioritising the time for yourself.

For busy folk, building or managing businesses, time can easily be filled with the tonne of other things you need to tackle in order for your business to keep ticking over.

It's much easier to prioritise tasks than breaks, because for many, being busy is a way of life. Working towards goals is the main focus, so taking breaks feels like you're slowing your progress down.

Not only this, but juggling home and family life, children, or other jobs alongside working on your business, these things always feel more urgent, and more important than taking a break.

Tips to Prioritise Self Care:

• Reframe the term self-care if it doesn't sit well with you. Maybe you could refer to it as rest time / recharge / me-time / self-maintenance / refresh space / mindful time / personal time… Words can influence how you react to things, so if self-care feels a bit odd – call it something different!
• Understand the importance of resting to prevent burnout and increased stress levels. The boom / bust cycle is much harder to maintain longer term. Burnout can mean you're out of action for weeks or months at a time, so when thinking about spending a few hours or days switching off, but you're putting it off and feeling guilty about it – think about what it would mean if you were forced to stop. (I promise, it's. not fun!)
• Brain dump everything you do related to both your work and home life. Then, look at the things that you could either delegate to others, or stop giving energy to at this time.
• Add in Self Care to your essentials list – do this before you start planning your time – it needs to be front and center!
• As you fill in your monthly / weekly / daily calendars – add in your break times like you would meetings with others. It's in there now – it's an appointment with yourself!
• Don't try to change everything all at once. Break yourself in gently… If you're planning to devise a new workout routine, be in bed by 8pm, start journaling, and take up meditation etc. introduce one habit at a time, and stack them with established habits (see below for more on this!)
• Sort your mindset. Believe that you deserve to be healthy, to feel energised and content. You do not have to work nonstop every day. Things won't stop if you take some time out. Create a way of working that allows you space to breathe.
• Tell people about your new daily structure, and get support with things if you need to.

Creating a Self-Care Routine

If you've read my other blogs you'll know that I am a huge advocate for approaching your work in a gentle and balanced way.

Experiencing burnout is no joke, and there are simple steps you can take to avoid this when you introduce a self-care routine to support you in your daily life.

I'm going to emphasise the word simple again, because I think it's important that you don't come at this thinking “Ugh another thing I should be doing…”

The trick when introducing any kind of change or new habit into your life, is to keep it simple.

Habit Stacking

Habit stacking is a brilliant way that you can make those new habits stick much quicker. It involves attaching the new habit to an existing one that you already do.

For example, if you want to start a morning journaling or exercise routine, attach it to something you currently do each morning.

With journaling, you could attach this to sitting down for your morning coffee. With exercise, perhaps you could link this with walking to work, or dropping the little ones to school. On your way back, you could take a longer route or power walk your way back home!

I talk about this in my post about Habit Stacking. Take a look if you find it hard to maintain consistency on those early days.

Plan Your Rest Times

Plan your breaks for the week / day into your calendar. Treat these breaks as you would treat a meeting with someone. This is your time and it's the easiest one to forget when you're flat out working on something.

This may sound obvious, but, if I didn't plan my rest breaks in, I wouldn't stop to take them. I'm an eat-at-your-desk person. This is a habit that's stayed with me since my teaching days (I wasn't a fan of staff rooms ?)

How you do this depends on how you like to work. If you use time blocking, or techniques like the pomodoro method, it's much easier to get into the work / rest cycle.

If you're someone who tires quickly, be aware of this. It's not a fault, it's just the way your mind and body works, so let's work with your body instead of against by forcing it to keep going.

30 minute rest breaks may be essential if you manage low energy or chronic illness. For others, a break every 60 or 90 minutes may be a good option to recharge your batteries.

If you're working on mini breaks throughout the day, use this time to step away from your desk. Move around, shift that trapped energy, and let your eyes see the sky instead of a screen!

Sort Your Evening Routine

As important is your morning routine is, it's easy to forget the impact that having a decent evening routine can have.

Restful sleep is crucial to maintaining good health, increased energy and focus each day. If you are chronically undersleeping, it will have a longer term impact on your physical and mental health.

Sleep deprivation can be linked to increased health issues, as well as your ability to function day to day. As a recovering insomniac, it played a massive role in my own health and wellbeing, as well as my mood and general enjoyment in life, for several years.

Evening Routines For Better Mornings

Not only does it support better sleeping habits, evening routines can make your mornings so much easier.

If you're planning to introduce daily exercise each morning, think about the morning you. The version of you who may be feeling a bit tired, and who is wanting to stay in bed for as long as is humanly possible. The version of you who isn't as enamoured with the thought of breaking out in a sweat before 7am.

When you take the time to prep each evening as part of your self care routine, you not only feel relaxed as it's striking another thing off your to-do list, but you're supporting yourself to get your day started in the best way possible.

Self Care Ideas

• Start a journaling practice
• Practice deep breathing / meditation
• Daily exercise / Movement
• Long bath – distraction free
• Reading a book in a comfy chair
• Dancing during your breaks
• Skin & hair routine
• Give yourself a mobile phone / social media break
• Healthy meals / prep
• Improved sleep routine
• Morning routine
• Evening wind down routine
• Go for a walk in nature
• Talk to a friend or loved one
• Declutter your desk or office
• Declutter your home / a room you've put off tackling
• Listen to music
• Take your lunch break away from your desk
• Treat yourself to a massage / acupuncture etc.
• Get creative – draw / colour / knit / sow etc.
• Gardening
• Get your comfies on and watch a movie
• Plan some things you want to do for fun
• Visit the gym
• Grab a coffee in town

This is just a small list, but they key is finding something that will feel good and that will help you to recharge your batteries.

Take a few minutes to think about how you could incorporate self care into your daily routines.

Tools Resources & Support

Taking care of yourself is something that I'm passionate about helping others with.

Whether you're a fellow entrepreneur / coach / therapist, or you too find it hard to prioritise your own needs, I hear you!

Below are some of my free offers and other tools that supports both self care and creating an improved work / life balance.

Thought Shifting Workbook – Change your mindset with this free download. CBT-Based worksheets to help you challenge your thoughts.

Self Care Journal Prompts – 21 Guided journal prompts. You can download the 21 pages for free!

Sunsama – A brilliant task management that is perfect for busy and neurodiverse minds who easily find themselves overwhelmed and distracted. grab a free 2 week trial and free month!

Meditation apps – Meditation apps like Calm where you can choose from a wide range of meditations music, lessons & more. I'm not affiliated with Calm, I just think the app is great! It gives you a 14 day free trial if you choose the premium version (it gives you access to a lot more resources). Then it's only £3.33 per month or £39.99 per year, so a really affordable app.

Journal Apps – There's a selection you can choose form in the Apple store or Google play. I like Journal on the iPhone as it auto links things you've done that day – eg. photos, or podcasts you've listened to! Again, not affiliated, just nice to have a digital option.

Final Thoughts

Self care isn't a nice-to-have concept, it means that you value and care about yourself enough to take the time you need to live in a way that's sustainable and promotes your overall well-being.

Self care doesn't need to be a big, grand gesture. If a 10 minute chat on the phone with a friend helps to fill your cup – that's self care.

If you commit to taking more breaks as you work – that's self care! Equally, if you want to treat yourself to massage, a day out or a holiday – it's self care!

Remember, you can put your own needs front and center, without feeling guilty about doing it.

A healthier, energised and more content version of you will probably become more focused and productive, and remain energised in your work.

Remember to share your favourite self care activities below!

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Meet Lynsey

Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a counsellor, coach and mentor for women who want to create change, but are feeling lost, uncertain and exhausted. With over 6 years’ experience of training, running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and adult trainer, I've learned the value of a gentle and intentional approach to work and life that energises you without draining all of your energy.

I've lived with ME/CFS since 2011, and since then re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses!

How? Improving your mindset, finding acceptance in yourself, and developing a gentle, but solution-focused approach to achieving goals is key. Knowing that it's not about how fast you move, but finding your own pace and trusting that you can achieve your goals in your own way, one step at a time.

If you'd like to know more about working with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on socials (links in the menu)

Have you seen my online store Quietly Conquer – Find DFY templates, downloads & more!