$322 Billion. That’s the global cost of burnout in turnover and lost productivity according to a recent Workhuman and Gallup report. $322 Billion. That’s a lot to lose to burnout and lack of mental well-being.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I am sharing more of my mental well-being and self-care journey with you today.

Self-care was a dirty word to me for a long time. I thought it meant selfish, time-stealing, making others wait. All kinds of things that self-care isn’t and wasn’t.

 

My dad said all this in a tone that made “self-care” seem like it was a waste of time, like it was a bad thing to try to look nice. He said it in a way that I took self-care to mean something bad, something wrong. After that, I didn’t put in any time into what I thought was self-care. Getting ready in the morning, making myself look nice. Choosing clothes (but no jeans). Doing my hair. Not doing any make-up, that wasn’t allowed. I developed a very narrow definition of self-care, one that I equated with the words “high-maintenance.” 

Fast forward to when I became a stressed-out mom to three boys under the age of four and a burned-out attorney turned entrepreneur working with start-ups in the heart of Silicon Valley. 

It wasn’t until I found myself standing in our living room calling the Kaiser advice nurse thinking I was having a heart attack that I began to get an inkling of what self-care was. She said to get to the emergency room, so I drove myself, with urgent calls to my husband to pick up the  kids because I was headed to the emergency room.

It turns out I had an overactive thyroid and what I thought as a heart attack was just a very dehydrated, over-stressed, and overwhelmed body telling me “stop or I’ll give out.” I had to learn very quickly to take care of my body. And once my body was in good shape, I could learn to take care of my mind. 

Over time, and especially after a divorce, I discovered many strategies for self-care, even when I didn’t think I had time for self-care. I learned the hard way that self-care was not a dirty word or something to be avoided at all costs, but something necessary and essential to a healthy life and mind.

Defining Self-care

What does self-care mean to you? For me, having time in the hospital to think about self-care,  it boiled down to a couple fundamental questions: 

• If you don’t care for yourself, who will? 
• What do I want to do to take care of me and the one body I have? 

I decided to take back control into my own hands, to take care of myself and my 3 boys. It goes back to the flight attendant warning to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. I had to care for myself before I could truly care for them and others. I took the first step in self-care when I started walking my kids to school and exercising every day, involving them in the process. 

What Self-care is Non-negotiable?

 

 

 

 

 

Other non-negotiable self-care for me includes eating good whole foods. I’ve eliminated processed foods and subscribed to a farm share to keep our fridge full of fresh, whole foods. 

 

 

 

I also keep music in my life and have throughout my career. I have played trombone in an orchestra most of my adult life and I never gave that up. People ask me how I did that while juggling work, 3 kids, community service, the school board, etc. My answer is the same – make time for the activities you care about the most. The ones that bring you joy. The ones that are a stress reliever. I nurtured a few hobbies that were important to me like photography, knitting, and quilting. 

 

The last non-negotiable self-care item for me is time outside hanging out in our backyard, talking, relaxing, and reconnecting each day. We built big backyard pallet couches just for this purpose!

 

Be vigilant about whatever your non-negotiable self-care is. I know some friends who have the same time each week carved out for mani/pedi or a massage or a float appointment. I tend to do those things sporadically but time outside, good whole foods, and a few joyful activities are the ones I hold sacred and non-negotiable for own my self-care. 

Is All Self-care the Same?

Does everyone think self-care is a day at the spa alone or with girlfriends? Nope, not at all. The more I talk to people about their self-care routines and what they consider self-care the more variations I hear. I took a broad view and looked at my self-care holistically. I have a few things that I consider self-care that others might not. 

First, I include self-advocacy and self-promotion as acts of self-care. No one will look out for me like me. Sticking up for myself or self-advocacy is important to my well-being. Self-promotion, making the ask for the raise, a promotion, the job, the position, the project, the speaking slot, the recognition, or the work. All of that is self-care to me. If you don’t promote yourself or make the ask, who will?

Second, I have two other self-care items that probably aren’t on many other people’s list of self-care items: knitting in meetings and making sure the kitchen counter is cleared and clean each night. 

 

I can’t sit still for long and I get antsy in meetings. I stop paying attention and then I start making lists of to do items. I started knitting in meetings to keep my hands occupied so my mind could pay better attention – works like a charm. 

For the clean kitchen self-care item, I hated waking up and finding a mess when I would come out to the kitchen each morning (those midnight snackers would leave behind a disaster area). When I set up my own home after getting divorced, I really took time to figure out what was important to me and this was one of the items that gave me a sense of peace and calm each day. 

 

I know others who have self-care requirements around the amount of sleep they require each night or the amount of money they must have in the bank for them to feel comfortable or quiet time in the morning to enjoy a cup of coffee before launching into their day. 

What is self-care for you that others wouldn’t consider to be self-care?

Day-to-day Self-care

What does self-care look like on a day to day basis? Well, for one thing, self-care doesn’t look the same for me every day. For the most part, exercise, my water intake, and eating fresh, whole foods happens consistently on a daily basis. But the time devoted to my writing and meditation is much more sporadic. 

I also try to use the nooks and crannies of my time wisely. You will find me doing toe raises or belly dancing moved while waiting in line at the grocery store or at Starbuck’s. When my boys were at sports practice, I would use that time to read, exercise, or make phone calls to friends. 

While self-care may not be the same for me from day to day, it is consistent overall and I make it a priority rather than letting my exercise and healthy eating habits go out the window at the first sign of stress or a schedule snafu.

Back-up Strategies

As an in-house lawyer who spent a lot of time negotiating agreements for product launches or on litigation or in the due diligence process for mergers and acquisitions, I had experienced varying degrees of stress and burn-out. Usually the pattern was to get stressed, work late into the night to keep up with everything, then stop eating right or getting enough sleep, and then start gaining weight. Then when that acquisition closed or that product launched, start the process of rebuilding healthier habits and losing weight. I can’t tell you how many times I went through that cycle. 

The other things that I see that getting in the way of consistent self-care or self-care at all are things like work travel, schedule changes, sick-kids, sick parents, commuting, any kind of illness, and many other unexpected events. 

Over time, I put a few back-up strategies in place for when life gets in the way. 

During travel, I always keep healthy snacks on hand. I made a list of good food choices, like hard boiled eggs or yoghurt or almonds, for when I have limited choices on the road. I also started traveling with my running clothes. I’ve even been known to ship my running shoes back home when they didn’t fit back into my carryon. I’ve also been known to walk up and down the train platform or to walk circles around the airport while waiting. 

When schedule changes happen to prevent exercise, I started holding walking meetings on those days. It gave us a chance to get a few steps in while enjoying the outdoors.

Mindset

My final bit of advice when it comes to self-care is that fundamentally, it is a mindset change. The biggest mindshift I made was to be intentional about taking care of myself. I also look for the self-care wins rather than getting so down on not being able to do every self-care item each day. I now take a moment of reflection at the end of the day to look for the wins. Naming wins or what I am grateful for each day (first thing when I open my eyes and last thing before closing my eyes and trying to sleep) has really changed my outlook and level of satisfaction with my life.

I also keep in mind the advice of a nutrition coach I once hired – something is better than nothing. If you can exercise for 10 minutes even if you don’t have an hour to make it to the gym, exercise for the 10 minutes and don’t beat yourself up for not going to the gym. Do what you can. Something is better than nothing.

You can always make self-care a fun challenge. For example, a few years ago, for the month of August when my last child was entering his senior year of high school, I hosted a 30-day wellness challenge for all the harried moms in back-to-school mode. I know, wellness challenge sounds like an oxymoron. But, from those daily looks at what self-care is or could be, we made observations about what self-care means to each of us and we made changes in our self-care routinesaccordingly. 

The last thing I’ll say about self-care is that it is much like what I mentioned earlier with the flight attendant warning to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others; If you don’t take care of you and the one body you have, who will. If you can’t function well because you aren’t taking care of yourself, then how can you help others effectively or do your job effectively?

• What are you doing to take care of yourself?
• What else do you want to do to take care of yourself?

As May is Mental Health Awareness Month – take a few minutes to reflect on your self-care and see if you need/want to make any changes to prioritize your well-being.