2. Add some "Nurturing Boosters." Your next step is to make a list of smaller self-care habits—the "nurturing boosters" that supplement your days. These can include taking bubble baths, reading a novel for 30 minutes, getting a manicure, going to a movie or having dinner with a friend. Make an effort to come up with lots of ideas; you’ll be picking something from this list each and every day. Regularly practicing self-care habits build strength and flexibility in your self-care muscle.
3.Make time for a regular "Workout." Finally, take those lists and get to work! Set a daily goal to add a nurturing booster to your schedule and track your progress by marking a big X on a calendar each time you do so. After a couple of days you’ll have a chain of Xs going; your goal is not to break it! At the beginning of each month, set a goal to do one activity from the barbell list. If it’s not something that can be done in the evening, schedule a weekend or even take a day off work to do it. You deserve to spend a day “working” on yourself! Hang your barbell list someplace where you can see it and tick off each goal as you accomplish it.
Over the next six months, promise yourself that you’ll put in the time and effort to building your self-care muscle so that it’s both powerful and reliable. By doing so you’ll have taken the most important first step in a reinvention, the one from which all other ideas and actions flow: Knowing how to make yourself happy.
Have a question about your reinvention you’d like to ask? Email me at ASK at Reinvention-Institute dot com. If your question is selected for my column you will WIN a Career Reinvention 101: Getting Started eKit!
Pamela Mitchell is Founder of The Reinvention Institute. She is an in-demand speaker who has appeared on the Today Show and been profiled and quoted in top media publications including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, More, Men’s Health, and Black Enterprise. The Reinvention Institute publishes Career Reinvention 101: Getting Started, an easy and affordable eKit (audio MP3 & PDF download) containing the essential how-tos of reinvention; click here for more information. Pamela’s book, The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy will be published by Dutton in January.
