What are effective strategies for setting realistic self-care goals?

I personally follow these steps: 1. Identify priorities 2. Start small 3. Be specific 4. Create a routine 5. Track progress and adjust as needed.

I actually feel self care discussions are generally overcomplicated. At the core of self care is one simple question: "if you had no responsibilities, commitments or otherwise, how would you spend your time?" (If unsure, "how would you like to spend your time?") This question goes right to the core of the human experience and unpacks what people want their day-to-day lives to look like. This is what refreshes people, and provides cues on the foundations of a person's effective resilience strategies. From there the goals are the "how to get there", and values alignment ensures resonance and congruence, minimising inner conflict/incongruence while working towards the optimal human experience.

Because I'm a former government guy, I love acronyms :-) Two favs: HALT & LEAD. HALT motivates self care by reminding me to never become too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely, and or too Tired. LEAD feeds and nurtures the basics in reminding me to Listen like you love listening, Explain with compassion and without fear, Answer the hard questions first, and make the tough Decisions promptly.

Identifying one’s values is a concept that is often oversimplified in mainstream media. We speak often of setting goals and the importance of working toward them, but our core beliefs are more than what is “important” to us or what we “achieve.” Our values and core beliefs are what drive us to prioritize what’s important and why we achieve. Identifying one’s values often begins with knowing what we are not by trusting our intuition. Our society emphasizes pinpointing the “what” and “why” when simply acknowledging and trusting our intrinsic discomfort can lead us to our core values. Self care can begin with filtering out the need for definitions and validating our instincts resulting in an organic gravitation toward what we value.

Setting realistic self-care goals is essential for creating sustainable and achievable habits that contribute to your overall well-being. Here are my effective strategies that may help you to set realistic self-care goals: Assess Your Current Lifestyle, Prioritise Your Needs, Start Small, Set Realistic Timeframes, Consider Your Resources, Align With Your Values, Celebrate Achievements, Involve Others, Be kind to yourself. Remember, self-care is a dynamic process, and your goals may evolve over time. Regularly reassess your needs and adjust your goals accordingly to ensure they remain realistic and attainable.

To invoke change, there must be room for change. reflect on what factors are currently at play, that aid, or hinder/form barriers to succesfully implementing steps to start self-care. questions to ask yourself: - what are advantages of my current situations? -what would be disadvantages of changes or my self-care goal/proces? - what are downsides to my current situation? - what would be the advantages of implementing and working on my self-care goal? Try to work out some "plan B's" . There will be times where you won't be able to do what you planned on doing. Thinking on an alternative action to take on those moments, will help you in keeping up, instead of abandoning the plan.

One thing I've found helpful is building a foundation first approach. What I mean by this is I actually focus on mindfulness, the power of now as the foundation. That allows me the energy and focus to add self care in terms pf physical, mental, emotional and social health on top of a solid foundation.

I agree with this! Be as honest as possible with yourself without judgment. I always say that if you are trying to change and it isn’t working, it’s because the system you have in place isn’t set up to succeed. Consider this a rating of a system and then identify what about the system is going well and what could improve.

When it comes to setting goals, I'm a big believer in the power of SMART objectives. Dedicating some minutes daily to mindfulness and exercising is a practice I hold dear, as it significantly helps with my focus and build the so needed resilience muscles.

SMART Goals can be helpful, just be mindfull to not make the SMART goal another source of stress or pressure of achievement. It can be interesting though to take certain metrics, actions or behaviours into mind, and check in on yourself from time to time, how these have changed. This can help motivate your, or maybe assess where difficulties lie

I am a fan of SMART Goals for specific direction, next step style aspects of achieving something tangible. For most things, for most people, at most times, SMART goals are extremely limiting. Like Will Smith said "why would we want to be realistic?" But once we do have clarity and direction, we can take a specific, smart approach. ** So long as we can do so understanding that not achieving those specific, measure, timelines is no big deal in the big picture.

It's similar to using counseling method's that enhances motivation Interviewing through the resolution of ambivalence. It grew out of the Prochaska and DiClemente model also described by Miller and Rollnick's work in the field of addiction medicine, which drew on the phrase 'ready, willing and able' to outline three critical components of motivation. These were: the importance of change for the patient/client (willingness) the confidence to change (ability) whether change is an immediate priority (readiness).

In my journey, I've learned that seeking support is not a sign of weakness but a hallmark of strength. Personally, I value connections and mentorship advice from folks who prioritize self-care. They not only inspire me but also hold me accountable, supporting greater heights of success.

Self-care is often positioned as a health topic that involves creating a better lifestyle or work'life balance. However it goes much deeper than that. Self-care is understanding how you value yourself and others, whether you are self-assured or needing recognition and external approval to feel empowered. It asks you to relfect why you do what you do, how you are influenced and what you stand for and what you can let go. It's a commitment to knowing your own authentic nature and not playing to the demands of others and then blaming them or yourself for the impact this has. It is choosing a different career/life path than your family, partner or culture values. It is personal mastery.

Motivational interviewing is underpinned by a series of principles that emphasise a collaborative therapeutic relationship in which the autonomy of the client is respected and the client's intrinsic resources for change are elicited by the practitioner/therapist. Within MI, the therapist is viewed as a facilitator rather than expert, who adopts a nonconfrontational approach to guide the client toward change. The overall spirit of MI has been described as collaborative, evocative and honouring of client autonomy.Miller and Rollnick have commented that the use of MI strategies in the absence of the spirit of MI is ineffective.

assessing your readiness, finding your values,... These are things that can be quite difficult to elicit on yourself. A third party can help you in this. It is far easier to have your cognitions challenged and have difficult questions ask to you by someone, instead of posing them on yourself.

This is one of the things I am most bullish on. One of the first things I tell people when I support them with their own goals, creative abilities and mindset is to add at least one more accountability partner, or mentor that DOES believe in what their setting out to achieve, because a lot of people WONT. Finally, not only having support, but supporting someone else as soon as you start learning as well. And third, finding someone at a similar point to you for bouncing ideas, collaborations and healthy competition.

It is important to celebrate small wins, and stay objective about areas of opportunity for growth! As uncomfortable as it may be, we can not improve if we don’t reflect on what we’ve done and look for those areas where we can continue to take ourselves to the next level. More important is making sure to acknowledge our improvements, even if we didn’t completely reach our goal! Any step towards the goal is a step in the right direction, and deserves our acknowledgment of the work it took to get there.

What I've observed is there are few months where I feel motivated to 'continue' certain habit .. stretching, meditation or reading a book at night. Then some months go by where I have to drag myself. In these tough times, what I find helpful is to just convince myself to begin the activity with a fraction of my usual target time.. say instead of 30 mins walk .. I tell myself today I'll do only 10 mins. That way I spend less effort to push myself (and actually do it). Once I'm doing the walk .. it is much easier to stretch that 10 min into 30. This policy can be applied to any activity. The important thing with any habit is to do it regularly. You can reduce the duration or do 4 days instead of 7.. but just keep going to internalize it.

Further elevate your self-care strategy by incorporating mindfulness practices, resilience-building exercises, and personalized wellness plans. These elements reinforce your commitment to holistic well-being, enabling an approach to self-care that transcends conventional boundaries and promotes sustained balance.

Fully agree! Making part of one’s routine and intentionally protecting time for self-care activities is key. This can look like putting time in the calendar for self-care or setting standing dates with friends, family members and partners to connect or take time to do something both parties enjoy. While engaging in self-care activities, take steps to limit distractions such as turning on “do not disturb” on devices during times set aside for self-care activities. Here’s a few practical tips: Eat a balanced diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, seafood and nuts to improve energy and focus throughout the day. Drink at least 60-62 ounces of water daily, and increase water intake during the summer.

Working as a life coach within businesses, I find it useful to first explore what created the situation where the client needs better self-care. For example is the client showing symptoms of burnout, overwhelm, ill health, anxiety, aggressive communication with direct report etc. Understanding how a person arrives to this point gives insight into what type of action needs to be taken. For example, people with a 'pleaser' pattern find it hard to delegate, set boundaries, push back on unrealistic goals or ask for more. This requires working on the pleaser pattern itself rather than setting practical goals like sleeping more, staying offline, eating better. This can be uncomfortable work but it cuts to the core and gets the results.

Behaviour change is a process of endurance, and there will not be instant succes. Take comfort that this is part of the process. Relapses will happen. Handling these relapses, lowered motivation to adhere,... These are all part of, and essential in the end to succesfully achieving your goals. setting up plans on how to deal with these drawbacks, should be an integral part of your journey.