Recently, I read a quote along the lines of “Self-care is building a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.” I’d never thought of that before. It seems that every self-care routine I’ve seen is about escaping real life for a few minutes or hours. Life is definitely something we enjoy taking a break from every so often whether it is reading a good book or taking a vacation. However, the value of creating a life you don’t feel the urge to escape from is priceless.
At some times in my life, I’ve been overwhelmed with the responsibilities and duties I’ve had to fill. I’d get home at the end of the day and collapse on my bed, drained.
When I was between semesters of college one year, I had very few responsibilities. My only goal was to save up enough money for the next semester, so I worked at my high school job all day, six days a week. Despite not having many responsibilities to overwhelm me, the tediousness of my job exhausted me mentally more than it ever could physically. I didn’t have time for creativity or fun because work took my whole day.
Sunday’s (my one day off) became my escape. I felt free. I would plan adventures and work on projects to spark my creativity. However, when Monday rolled around, I dragged my feet over to my monotonous job.
My weekly self-care was my escape from my life. I wasn’t giving myself the care I needed during the weekdays. Because of this experience, I’ve determined to build a life I love.
Over the years, I’ve made both incremental and drastic changes to build a life I love. Whenever I feel burnt out or overwhelmed, I take a good, long look at my situation.
I ponder questions like: What is it I am trying to escape from in my current life? What specific actions can I take each day to change? Who would I spend my time with? What routines should I change or add? How would I change my environment?
Recently, I decided it was time for another round of tweaking in building a life I love.
Assessing my current routine
My current routine consists of reading scriptures, meditating, and journaling along with a weekly date night with my husband. These specific habits provide the calm needed to balance out the stress of my current responsibilities. The days when I complete all of them are the days I feel most fulfilled and at peace. I know these are actions I want to keep.
But, what in my life needs to change? As this will vary from person to person, let’s take a step back to look at the most fulfilling time in my life for ideas for my new routine.
My junior and senior year of college I had finally figured out school, and I lived each day confidently moving toward graduation and working in a career I was excited for. I stayed busy with two, fulfilling part-time jobs, had time each day for deep conversations with my roommates, served others in my church responsibilities, studied a subject I love, and filled each weekend with adventures. Honestly, just thinking about this time of my life makes me smile. I felt so happy. Each day was a joy to wake up to.
What made this so fulfilling for me is that I felt needed and competent. People looked to me as an example. They asked me for advice. Even though I wasn’t nearly perfect (as no one can be), I was adding value to the world. This isn’t to say I’m not adding value to the world now. I think anyone with the intent to do good adds value no matter how small they may think it is. What I’m saying is that I saw the value I was adding. I saw the effects I had on those around me for the better. My purpose was being fulfilled every day.
Imagine a life like that. Each day, you fall asleep with a smile on your face, knowing you’ve made a difference in the world. That may sound unachievable. But, I can promise you, it’s not impossible.
A major part of building a life you love comes back to your purpose. When you are fulfilling your purpose, that’s the best kind of love you can feel for yourself. Finally, you’re doing what you are meant to. I wrote a post about finding your life’s purpose a few months ago. Head over that way if you want to find your purpose before moving on.
So, from here, I know the kind of things I’m looking for in building a life I love. If you’re doing this along with me, your results may be drastically different than mine, so don’t take this as the only option. And remember, you don’t have only one chance at a good life. There are tons of versions of a good life for you. Don’t stress about needing to find the “right” one. Because there isn’t just one.
Building a life I love
Fast forward three weeks. I wrote this post as a way to contemplate the changes I needed to make. From thinking about my purpose and the most fulfilled times in my life, I made some changes. And, honestly, the results were more than I was expecting.
I’ve been feeling down for weeks now, and making these changes built me up in a way I didn’t expect. I’ve found more contentment with my life. I’m not constantly looking at greener pastures wishing I was there instead. I’m happy with the life I live. Looking back at my journal entries from these past weeks, there’s a noticeable increase in my positivity. My journal entries changed from whining about my life to being grateful for the good in it.
There were two main changes I made. First was my habits. My habit list became: exercise, journal, meditate, say three things I’m grateful for, perform and act of kindness, no social media, and read my scriptures. I typically keep quite short habit lists (I don’t know how anyone can handle the extensive trackers I see in bullet journals online), so having these seven feel like a lot. However, every habit produces exponentially more results than the time required to complete it. Each habit is valuable.
The second major change I made was adding the affirmation, “I can do hard things.” This topic opens a whole can of worms we don’t have time for in this post, but let me say, telling myself every day that I can do hard things gave me confidence in myself. I began trying more, even if I knew I would fail. This one phrase led me to accomplish things I probably would have put off for another month at least.
In making your own changes, add habits and affirmations that promote a truth you struggle with. My truth was that I can do hard things because my struggle was that I give up easily. My habits were small acts that produced big results because I don’t typically start tasks unless I know I can accomplish them.
Whatever changes you make, remember that each step you take is closer to building a life you don’t have to escape from.
Until next week, make each day better.
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