The Essentials of Self-Care Series: Your Well-being & Personal Image

 

"Self Care is the main essential to manifesting anything in your LIFE..."

Everything has changed. Now, things were normally taken for granted- an evening with friends, the daily commute, a plane flight home -are no longer the same. There is uncertainty about tomorrow; about the health and safety of families, friends, and loved ones; and about our ability to live the lives we love. 

I think every one of us will forever remember this last quarter of 2020 as being a dark one, marked by mandatory isolation and brand new norms in the way we live, work, and play. Many had to deal with zoom frustrations and cabin fever, and the mandatory confinement made it very clear just how much we had taken things for granted until such a life catastrophe happened. We suddenly realized that we depended on being together. In view of major businesses and brands having been forced to close their transaction for more than three months, we wish to pay special homage to the Health, Beauty, and Wellness narratives, and we invite you to embark on the journey to continue to discover the very best essentials of well-being that this amazing industry has offered to men and women. 

Key Essential Self-Care Tips to Enhance Your Well-being: Feeling good and looking good. 

Self-care by definition is about the process of taking a highly active role in your happiness and well-being, particularly during challenging times of personal stress. Generally speaking, self-care is really about taking care of our bodies, minds, and personal grooming to enhance our quality of life from looking good, feeling good, and having good mental health.

Why is Self-care essential for your well-being and Personal-Image?

Self-care is important to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself as it produces positive feelings and boosts your confidence and self-esteem. It is necessary to remind yourself and others that you and your needs are important. It helps ensure that you stay focus, motivated, and healthy (physically and mentally), ultimately projected on your physical appearance.. feeling good, and looking good. 

So often, we find ourselves burning out from stress in our daily lives, and it's not until the moment we've absolutely had enough that we allow ourselves a break. 

If you are a leader, health care professional, educator, therapist, change agent, caregiver, parent, purpose-driven entrepreneur, - a person who gives a lot of yourself in service to the well-being, learning, and growth of others one way or another-self-care and care of others becomes an important balance act. 

Golden Rule: Practice mindfulness. We all should learn to get to know more of ourselves, and when to take a break before we reach that final breaking point. Some of you, especially the high achievers may love to push yourself to the extreme until you've enough and then need to go out, socialize with friends or watch a good movie. Incorporating your hobbies, leisure activities, sports, traveling, listening to music, going for a date with loved ones, or reading into daily and weekly routine has made me happier and I hope it will do the same for you. 

Here are tips to practice self-care to enhance both your Well-being and Personal Image:

Self-care includes all the things you do to take care of your well-being and it can be categorized into seven (7) key dimensions of your life.

1. Physical Self-care (The Body): Live, Move, and Breath

Image Credit: Pixabay by Plya Lole


A bit of self-indulgence is really necessary to help manage your stress, make you feel good, and looking good.

Physical self-care involves ensuring an overall healthy lifestyle that includes eating healthy, drinking lots of water, and getting sufficient sleep and plenty of exercises, keep fit. This is also about watching your body weight so you can wear the clothes, dresses you like, or taking time off from work to get your hair, nail manicured and skin treated (Facial treatment). All these make you feel good, motivated, and boost your confidence too. While physical self-care can be from watching a movie to a day spa, there are many other activities you can do to enhance your overall physical well-being to contribute to better health and the way you feel and the way you look, enhancing your Personal Image. These physical activities may seem 'superficial', it is essential to maintaining balance, and a bit of self-indulgence is really necessary to help manage your stress. So it is highly recommended to go and visit your favourite Personal care/Beauty Store or make an appointment to your favourite day spa beauty salon, or if you are the D.I.Y type, splurge on one of those bath bombs for a relaxed evening in the bathtub- you deserve it!

Image Credit: Pixabay by Lukas Bieri

Physical self-care includes de-cluttering your home and office (Work From Home Space), giving you a feeling of organized spaciousness,

Some Physical self-care activities include:

• Eating healthy, drinking and getting sufficient exercise, 
• Take time away to self-indulge in a day spa or facial salon. 
• De-cluttering your home and office (or Work From Home Station Space). 
• Take time away from Computers, TV, and your Smartphone (sedentary lifestyles are a modern health issue). 
• Enjoy moments of stillness, take a rest to rejuvenate!

Physical self-care is more than exercising and eating right. It is possibly one of the most important forms of self-care. 

2. Emotional Self-care (The Heart): To Love, care, and be in a relationship with yourself and others. 

Image credit: Pixabay by Myriam Zilles

Read a favourite book, short story, magazine, or newspaper that you enjoy, even if you only do it for 30 minutes every day.

Emotional self-care is all about your feelings. But it's not about making sure you feel good all the time. We are faced with anxiety, anger, sadness, loneliness, and other uncomfortable feelings from time to time in our lives. The purpose of emotional self-care is to be able to cope with those kinds of feelings so that we are not overwhelmed by them. It's also to help us identify and express those feelings to ourselves and others. 

Emotional self-care is simply the act of allowing yourself to feel your emotions. It might include setting clear boundaries on your time and energy. Engage emotional boundaries within 'helping' relationships, like surrounding yourself with positive people and affirmative inspiring positive messages. Give and receive love, kindness, forgive others, and support. 

Each of us has the potential to achieve a successful and happy life but our "negative beliefs" can influence our behaviour and attitude; a belief that comes from a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the contrary, "positive beliefs" help you focus on what you need to do to accomplish your aim/purpose in life. They give you the self-confidence to persevere and succeed. Positive thinking often starts from self-talk. A self-Talk is a powerful tool for increasing your self-confidence and curbing negative emotions. 

Some examples of positive self-talk:'I can do it.' 'I'm good enough.' 'If I want to, I can.' " It doesn't matter if I make a mistake.'

We all talk to ourselves. Self-talk can be positive ("I can do this" or "It is going to work.")  or negative (I'll never be good enough." or "I'm not intelligent."). Positive self-talk helps you calm down and control stress. With practice, you can learn to turn negative thoughts into positive ones. For example, to help you feel better, practise positive self-talk every day.  Finding joy in your life is a skill and a habit. When stress makes you feel bad, do something that makes you feel good. Doing things you enjoy is a natural way to fight off stress. Allowing yourself to cry when you feel sad, step away by spending time with loved ones, reading your favourite book/magazines, or watching a movie 

Some emotional self-care activities include:

• Talking to a trusted friend about your feelings
• Ending toxic and otherwise unhealthy relationships
• Confronting people or situations that makes you uncomfortable
• Developing hobbies, or other activities  that help you process your emotions

3. Psychological/Mental Self-care (The Mind): Learn, think, and Grow. 

Image credit: Pixabay

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."- Aristotle

Psychological self-care activities might include Personal and Professional development. Take time for personal reflection. Cultivate self-awareness through things such as writing daily journals, getting feedback from others, coaching/counselling, and consultation- areas where you have the opportunity to learn, reflect and grow.

One of the most neglected areas of self-care is that most people are lacking engagement across all walks of life and age groups. It is OK to say "no" to requests that you know are not of your liking or will add stress to your daily lives. This is an area that needs attention and is engaged with your inner being (thoughts, feelings, attitudes), which might be able to reduce stress. Receive and accept compliments from others with sincere gratitude, and make time for self-reflection. Mental or psychological self-care is self-care for the mind. Your mental or psychological health is just as important as your physical health. It is about keeping your stress levels low, relaxing, and giving yourself a break. 

Some Psychological/mental self-care activities include:

• Engaging in Art Exhibitions
• Learn about a hobby that interests you, 
• Practising self-compassion and 
• Self-acceptance  

4. Making the Connection Self-care (both Professional & Social -Connecting with coworkers and business partners)  

Professional:

Image credit: Ali Yahya

Taking time to chat with coworkers or peers is an essential professional self-care 

Remember the theme song for the TV series 'FRIENDS', - "I'll be there for You.'?

Engaging in professional self-care is essential for those in the workforce and business arena. These principles can be easily applicable to those still in school, colleges, or universities. Some of these examples are very basic, yet often missed throughout a busy work schedule or schoolwork. 

They include

• Taking time to chat with coworkers/peers
• Decorating your workspace to your liking or self-motivations
• Balancing your work-load (taking breaks as needed)
• Taking outside professional development courses for both upskilling and continuous life learning.
• Have a conducive work environment or creating a quiet reserved space to get your work done (especially for those who Work From Home)

Social: 

Image credit: Pixabay by Murtaza Ali

Making CONNECTIONS with other people is critical and essential self-care for human beings- even those of us who are introverts and like lots of alone time.

Social self-care prioritizes socialization and friendships. Getting connected with other people is critical and essential to humans. Spending time with family, friends, co-workers is important to our overall well-being and happiness. 

Some Social self-care activities include:

• Girls' night out with close friends
• Being part of a Club or Professional Association
• Having a quiet dinner with a good friend to catch up
• Going to a friend's BBQ

5. Spiritual self-care (The Spirit): To connect with the essence, purpose, and meaning of life's existence

Pause and reflect on what you are currently doing for your spiritual self-care, to connect with the essence, purpose, and meaning of life's existence.

Spiritual self-care might include prayer and meditation. You may want to visualize your success, practise gratitude, spend time in nature, and be aware of the non-material aspects of your life. Practise mindfulness and being present in the moment. 

Spirituality is all about a deeper sense of connection, meaning, understanding of life. Studies have shown that people who have a sense of spirituality or religion tend to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Some spiritual self-care activities include:

• Evaluating what is most important in your life
• Determining your priority values 
• Aligning with your belief system
• Reading books about various forms of spirituality and religion
• Watching documentaries about cultures, religions, etc.
• Using positive affirmations for stress or anxiety relief

6. Financial self-care: Value the hours of your life

Image credit: Unsplash by Pepi Stojanovski

The pursuit of life is in the pursuit of happiness. Are You Running Your Life or Is it Running You?

Do you value the hours of your life? Are you working at something you love and believe in and are committed to? Or are you at least working at something that is preparing you for the work you are passionate about or born to do? Do you hate to wake up in the morning because you hate what you do? Don't wait another day to be happy and fulfilled in your work or what you do. The happiness of your life is in the pursuit of happiness. 

Before deciding how you want to spend your time, you might like to take a look at how you are spending your time. Make a checklist to help figure this out. There are 168 hours every week. How many hours are you spending on your number-one priorities? How many hours are you spending on income-producing activities? Are there things you would like to change?  

Do what makes money first

If you are in business for yourself, it is easy to let work fill every waking hour of your life. But corporate executives often work the same long hours, and so do lots of administrative wage-earners who care about doing a good job. 

Activities for Financial self-care includes taking the three (3) rules for making money in business and at work:

• Do what makes money now
• Do what makes money soon
• Do what makes money later

Focus on results instead of the number of hours it might take to produce the results.

• Habits either serve you or sink you. Working more hours isn't the answer to making more money at some point we all run out of hours. Focus on results instead of the number of hours.it might take to produce the results. Effective use of time produces results. You have to decide what commitments of your time and energy work for you. Being in a rush, being overwhelmed, can take a toll on your life in ways you don't even notice. It can change an otherwise calm and friendly person into someone uncaring of the people around them, instead of truly living and experiencing the present. Creative ideas come while I am at rest. 

Activities for Financial self-care includes:

• Have creative breaks like go for a walk or go for a drive when you work long hours
• Have the discipline necessary to focus on your goals
• Attract rather than promoting

7. Self-Image for Self-care

Image credit: Unsplash by Benjamin Rascoe

Dress in clothes that makes look good and that makes you feel good about yourself 

When you are able to achieve life balance, lessened stress may allow you to feel good and look good, you will be on your way to seeking beyond, and succeed in other areas of your life. 

Your self-image matters! How you look must be aligned with how you feel like the body talks and it also shows on your face, in your behaviour, your body gestures, your tone of voice, and the way you speak. 

What exactly is Self-Image? 

It's not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it's what you whisper to yourself that has the most power. 

- Robert Kiyosaki

Self Image is the most basic form of internalized mental picture /idea you have of yourself. It's how you think and feels about yourself based on your appearance, performance/achievement, relationships that consistently impact your outlook on life as well as on your level of happiness and fulfillment. 

Have you ever asked someone:

"How do I look?"

"How am I doing?"

"How do others think of me?"

Some activities to improve self-image includes:

• Dress in clothes that makes you feel and look good about yourself. 
• Learn the differences between Healthy vs Unhealthy Self-Image by either reading a Personal Image book, attending Professional Image courses, or have a Personal Coaching by a certified Image Consultant
• Know your self-worth.'
• Do a personal SWOT (with the help of a Personal Coach)
• A shift from negative to positive self-talk (refer Item Mo. 2 Emotional Self-care)
• Analyze your 'Star Qualities & Strengths' with the help of a Personal coach or friend 
• Establish with the help of an Image Consultant a 'DESIRED' and 'AUTHENTIC' ideal picture of a 'healthy fulfilled' self-concept of yourself.
• Be in the driver's seat and take control of your Personal Image.
• Gain more knowledge 

ACTION: Developing a Self-Care Plan

Self-care is learned, purposeful, and continuous.

Image credit: Unsplash by Jess Bailey

While certain stress in life is necessary, the best thing in life comes with an intentional balance. 

To get started, develop a Self-care Plan. It is easy for everyday events to become overly stressful and out of control or unmanageable. Yes, change isn't easy, thus I highly recommend doing one thing at a time with a well-thought-through Self-care plan in accordance with your goal. This way, you can see how each aspect of your self-care benefits your well-being enhancing your Self-Image (and overall Personal Image). 

You know what's best for you- give yourself permission to take time off to fill 'your own cup' so that you can make a difference from a place of vitality, well-being, good physical and psychological mental health. Your self-care matters to your Personal Image, and Professional development, too- it is a win-win!

With these seven (7) dimensions of self-care and wellness in mind, consider your own self-care core activities in these areas of your life. Ask yourself how do you nourish your mind, body, heart, spirit, and relationships? How do you manage to reduce stress in both your personal and professional life?

What's calling you to more attention? What is one self-care action you would like to commit to doing today? This week? This month? This year? How do you recognize when you neglect your self-care needs? And how do you feel when you are honouring your self-care needs? 

Stay Safe and Social Distancing for Self-Care