trying your best Archives - The Perfect Blend

Self-care is something I CONSTANTLY advocate for. You can ask my friends, colleagues, and even students (I am a teacher b.t.w). I am always saying things like ‘You can’t pour from an empty cup’ or ‘Do not forget about yourself’.

In class, when I ask my students what they did over the weekend I usually get responses such as ‘doing assignments’ or ‘catching up on school work’ and I immediately respond with, What about you? What about family?

The thing is, yes I advocate for self-care but what does that actually mean?

I am currently reading a book titled “How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t” by Andrea Owen and in one of her chapters she speaks about numbing versus comfort and it really put things into perspective for me.

She said, “Many of the things we tend to use as numbing mechanisms are the same things that we use to comfort ourselves, but when we chuck self-control out the window, we move into disassociating territory”.

She goes on to give this example, “Had a bad day and hopped onto Facebook to forget about it for a few minutes? a month later, you realize you’ve spent more time scrolling through Facebook than you have interacting with actual people in real life.”

WOW… Just wow!

Let us unpack this real quick.

Self-sabotage according to www.verywellmind.com has been explained as such, “self-sabotaging behaviour refers to intentional action (or inaction) that undermines people’s progress and prevents them from accomplishing their goals. Self-sabotage occurs when people hinder their own success.”

Now I am not sure which category you fall into, is it intentional or are you simply not achieving your goals due to inaction? Regardless you are still hindering aspects of your life with the choices you are making. ~~Scratch that~~. That WE are.

I am definitely not sitting on a pedestal watching you fail. I to self-sabotage. Apparently, more than I realised. ((sigh))

HOW TO STOP SELF-SABOTAGING:

I am not going to give a full-blown teaching on self-sabotage because it’s quite an in-depth topic. The website I linked above has got some great resources. What I want to do is help with the first step, and that is admitting ~~you~~ we have a problem, only then can something be done about it.

So we need to ask ourselves just TWO questions to help us unpack this whole self-sabotaging thing.

Is your behaviour aligning with your goals?
Is your intentional action or inaction based on a fear of failure and worry about looking foolish?

Simple questions right?? ((insert face palm emoji here))

Think about these questions, but really think about it. And before you say, “I am tired”, or “I am always so busy”, stop right there. Once you want something bad enough those excuses do not hold the same weight as it does when you are sitting on the self-sabotage couch watching your life pass by you.

Again let me remind you, I am not sitting on a pedestal. I am currently on the self-sabotage couch… But, now that I am aware of my problem and am doing some introspection I am slowly getting off this couch that hinders my progress and cleaning the space around it. (Just remember, the self-sabotage couch is a metaphor but if you literally spend your days on the couch (like me) then it’s pretty literal too.)

After getting a better understanding of self-sabotage I looked a little deeper at what self-care means and I was quite surprised because it is not something people usually search for, it is something people do. We all tell one another that self-care is doing something for yourself to make you happy. It is that simple right? ((insert eye-rolling emoji here))

According to the same site, I read another article, www.verywellmind.com and they defined self-care as such, “Essentially, self-care means a conscious act people take in order to promote their own physical, mental, and emotional health.”

Read that again. What sticks out?

A CONSCIOUS ACT

Would you say that the things you generally do for “self-care” you do consciously? Because despite my going on and on to anyone who will listen about the importance of self-care, after reading that chapter in Andrea Owen’s book and diving into what self-care really is about I really started doing some introspection I have come to realise, that I, in fact, do not do it consciously, there is no self-control and it often does feel very disassociative. So am I really caring for myself or am I sabotaging myself to numb the feelings I do not want to feel?

Perhaps you need to ask yourself the same question honestly.

HOW TO DO SELF-CARE PROPERLY:

Alright, now that we have a better understanding of what self-sabotaging and self-care are, we can conclude that we probably self-sabotage a lot and our self-care ‘routine’ isn’t actually promoting our physical, mental, or emotional health.

But how do we fix this?

Well if you have read this far you probably have already admitted it and you have started thinking about examples in your life where you sit on the self-sabotage couch claiming to be caring for yourself and well, you weren’t. You may even be there right now ((like meeeeeeee)). So let us look at 2 things we can start to consciously take care of ourselves so we can actually start to live our best life.

1. Make a list (on your phone or on a piece of paper) of the 6 categories of self-care listed below.

www.headofthehive.co.uk

Once you have done this write down ONE activity that you have done in the past that makes you feel like you’ve breathed in fresh air and the world has calmed around you. Activities that need to be done with intention and consciously.

2. Slowly start doing some of these activities that you listed BUT with intention so that you can feel the full benefit of them. Some of these things overlap, for example, you could exercise (physical) with a friend (social) or clean space in your home (environmental) so that you can try a new hobby (personal).

Try doing at least one thing a day where you actively spend some time refuelling. Even if it is 5 – 10 minutes.

Remember, you might feel like you are managing and getting through the long to-do list you have every day and you do not feel like you are burning out but ask yourself how often you sit on that self-sabotage couch and watch your life pass by you. Once you start implementing these self-care activities and do them with intention and consciously you will enjoy the feeling of breathing fresh air so much that you will begin to make time for it and eventually you cannot imagine your days without it.

*P.S* When I refer to your ‘self-sabotage’ couch I do not mean that you cannot sit and relax on the couch and watch a movie, but remember what Andrea Owen said in her book, “When we chuck self-control out the window, we move into disassociating territory” so if you want to watch a movie, watch a movie but put your phone away and intentionally watch it if you want to watch series? That’s fine, but perhaps stop watching a season a day. ((uhm, yeah I am talking about myself here))

You just need to ask yourself if you are doing it intentionally and if you still have self-control. If the answer is yes then do the things that bring you joy and fill your cup.

I pray reading this has helped you, even just a little bit. Continue to learn and grow. I do not want you to just survive life, I want you to thrive!

God Bless!

I decided to name my blog ‘The Perfect Blend’ because it is what I strive to do. Life can be so demanding and before you know it you are being stretched in many different directions at the same time.

Can you relate?

While doing some research I looked up the word ‘perfect’, seeing as it is the name of this blog, and according to Merriam-Webster, perfect means “being entirely without fault or defect: flawless: a perfect diamond: satisfying all requirements“

Now I know perfection according to Merriam-Webster is impossible but perhaps we need a new definition of the word. From now on ‘perfect’ means showing up, it means trying your best, and it also means putting in the work. We can be a diamond in the rough, we can set our own requirements so that WE can be satisfied with them.

Listen, friends, we are all on different journeys and we have all experienced life differently but I do know that we have more in common than you think.

In society people expect you to be perfect (the real definition), but who are they to speak? Do they wake up every day in your life? Live out your routines? Experience the emotions you do? NO, THEY DON’T! So do not let that define you, hold you back, or make you feel the opposite of perfect because you are a child of God and you were created in His image, therefore you are already perfect!

I read something on Facebook a few years ago from someone calling themself “redheadhatchet” and took a screenshot of it. It says the following:

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One of my college professors used to say “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I HAD TO DO EVERYTHING PERFECTLY.

But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when 2 minutes seem exhausting. Doing 10 minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when doing 30 minutes of cardio seems impossible.

Changing your clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because you don’t have the energy to go anywhere.

Anything worth doing is worth doing it poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it at all.

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Can you relate to any of that? I know I can. More often than I would care to admit. BUT, we need to stop being so hard on ourselves.

Living life in 2023 feels like you are trying to juggle everything and it is on fire. It is a lot. So today I want you to sit down, open your notes app, or take out a piece of paper and a pen and write out A REALISTIC definition of perfect for YOU, and come up with even just one ‘habit’ that will help you when you get caught up in your day to day life and you just want to scream.

This is my go-to when it comes to my own definition of ‘perfect’, the one where I am just showing up, trying MY best, and putting in the work, even if it seems so small in comparison to what we see on social media or with the people around us.

So let us set our new go-to habit so that we have a bare minimum that we can achieve and still be happy with our ‘perfect’. These are the two things I try and implement in my life when even showing up feels like a chore.

1. Time Yourself

You have just had a full day of work, you have dishes that you need to pack away, clothes that need to be taken off the washing line and put in the cupboard, the dogs need to be fed, the food heated up and you do not want to do ANY of it. You are tired and all you want to do is sit in front of the TV and binge Netflix. As lovely as that sounds (and I have done it, A LOT) the worse it actually makes you feel because you still have to do those things and probably even more.

Time yourself completing a task, it sounds silly, yes, but hear me out. I usually use my watch but using your phone or a traditional clock/ timer works too. I hit start and begin the task and press stop when I am done. Do you know what I found?

It takes me 3 minutes to pack away the dishes, and less than 10 minutes to take my washing off the line and pack them away. Doing this one seemingly silly habit has helped me achieve something even when doing most things seem just too much.

2. The Two-Minute Rule

This one was a game changer for me and I constantly tell people about it who will listen to me. Similar to my previous go-to except it requires even less effort when it comes to thinking which is perfect when all you want to do is crawl under a blanket and not human anymore.

What takes you less than 2 minutes to do?

You have put water in the kettle and turned it on to boil, in the time it takes for the water to boil you can fold some towels that you washed, take out the chicken from the freezer, look at the pantry, and jot down what you need to buy for the week ahead.

All seemingly small and trivial things that require very little thought yet make such a huge difference when you forget to take out the chicken and you now have nothing to cook and get take out or the towels just sit in the basket for days.

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I am not saying you need to constantly be busy because let’s face it, no one wants to constantly be busy. I yearn for those few minutes to just sit and breathe. What I am saying is regardless of whether we like it or not things need to be done and we cannot escape reality, so instead of sitting and feeling so imperfect because you didn’t do 1000 things rather be proud because you did 3, 3 fewer things that you need to do tomorrow.

I pray that you really read this, and it helped even a little bit. Just remember to redefine perfect for you, so that you can be proud of yourself for just showing up and trying.

God Bless!

Self-Care or Self-Sabotage

The not-so-perfect Perfect Blend