The 3 Reasons You Don’t Practice Self-Care

When I talk to women about self-care, invariably what I hear are excuses. Some of them are legitimate… and most of them are not. “I don’t have time”, “I can’t afford it”, “My family is more important” or “My work is more important”. The list goes on. What I know to be true is that the excuses are based in some root beliefs.

1. You truly believe you don’t have enough time. This is because the assumption you are making is that self-care requires a lot of time and that, I believe, you really don’t have. I have a busy life, too. I get it. But self-care can happen in minutes. It can be as easy as saying “no” to a project you really don’t want to do but feel that you “should”. (You freed up time there). It can look like taking your lunch to work and sitting outside on a park bench to eat it, enjoying the flowers and listening to the birds. (You gained some mental clarity so you could be more efficient in the afternoon). It can look like asking your partner to put the kids to bed so you can have thirty minutes of decompress time (Bought yourself some transition time from kids and dinner to evening wind-down and precious partner time). It can look a hundred different ways. But you really do have enough time. You just have to find it and claim it.

2. You don’t have any clue of where to start. This one is soooooooo common. I believe it’s because we didn’t learn it from our parents and in particular, our mothers. I don’t know about you, but my mom only went away once in my childhood, to my cousin’s wedding, and she missed me and my Dad so much, she cut her trip short and came home a day early. When my parents celebrated their anniversary, they took me out to dinner with them. I don’t ever recall my mom having lunch with a friend and she certainly never got a massage or a manicure. Her focus was family, family, family and when she returned to work, work and family. As a result, I never learned how to practice self-care because I didn’t see it modeled for me at home so I spent most of my 20s working hard on everything else in my life that I thought mattered – everything except for me. When I became a coach at age 30, I learned it from other mentors, teachers and role models in my life and now that I’m raising my own daughter, I intend to model it for her so that she grows up knowing that she deserves to take some time just for her. Which brings me to the next point…

3. You don’t think you’re worthy or deserving of some self-love and self-nurturing. I think for so many women this is the root issue. Somewhere along the way you may have heard messages that led you to believe that you were less than or not good enough. So when you grew up, went to college, became an adult, you developed a need to achieve, a passion to please, the desire to succeed. It is often couched in “how can I be of service to the world?” but it’s often hiding the fact that you really don’t think you deserve to take care of yourself so you keep going, going, going, doing, doing, doing until there’s nothing left but fumes. I promise you, you are worthy, you are deserving and you are lovable… just because you are uniquely and wonderfully you.

“The practice of Extreme Self Care forces us to make choices and decisions that honor and reflect the true nature of our soul. While the whole notion of this might seem selfish or self-centered, doing so actually allows us to make our greatest contribution to the world. “ – Cheryl Richardson, The Art of Extreme Self Care

Amen, Cheryl! I heard her speak at an ICF Conference about 10 years ago and I’ve been following her work ever since. I love her books (I own four of them!) and so agree with this statement. Self care allows you to make your best contributions to the world because you can show up more fully whole and real and alive. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post that will address the 5 Reasons Why You Should Practice Self Care.

In the mean time, you may want to take a peek at my Smart Self Care for Busy Women e-course. It starts in just 5 days. It may be time to stop making excuses and start realizing your worth. This four week class may be just the ticket to help you on your journey…