Self-Care Is Never Selfish: Make Time for Self-Care in Your Busy Family Schedule

Have you ever wondered how some women just seem to do it all? 

She’s the boss lady who owns her own business and is killing it on social media.

She’s the co-worker who serves as chair to multiple non-profit organizations, and she’s always at her sons’ (many) baseball games.

She’s the mom who is super fit - she goes to the gym, runs the trail, and plays tennis all before ten in the morning. She’s the one who takes meals to the Food Pantry and makes her kids’ after-school activities her first priority.

We all know women like this in our society. While we cheer them on in their endeavors, we also feel a twinge of jealousy creep up inside of us. “How does she do it?” we first ask. And then the comparison question soon follows, “How come she can do it all and I can’t?”

This is the question that we are really asking when we see women multi-task like superheroes. When this question comes into our presence, our first inclination is to doubt our own worth, schedules, and choices in life. Comparison slides us into a pit of insecurity, so dark and so fast that we don’t know we are trapped until we can’t seem to get ourselves undone.

It’s easy to look at someone else and think they have it all together. It’s easy to wonder how they do it all. But what isn’t easy is realizing what they aren't spending their time on. 

The boss lady who rocks Instagram? Does she schedule in time away from social media?

The co-worker who always says yes to others? Does she ever say yes to her own self-care?

The super-fit mom? Is counting calories and steps consuming her thoughts more than she'd wish to share? 

Looks can be deceiving, yes this is true. What one mom has, the other might not. Let us not get so trapped into comparing ourselves with each other that we miss out on what we have to celebrate in our own lives.

How we spend our time is determined by what influences us and what distracts us. The simple truth is we can't do it all, something always has to give. But, we can find time in our busy schedules to take care of ourselves, because self-care is never selfish.  

Here are 3 Tips for You To Find Time for Self-Care:

1. Figure Out What's Important Now (WIN)

Your "WIN" is What's Important Now. Start to figure out your WIN by listing out all the things on your mind right now that you feel like you have to do.

2. Get the Future Out Of Your Head

Go ahead and dream about your ideal schedule and what's on your bucket list to do in life. Get it on paper. What is the next right thing you can do now to move you closer to where you want to be?

3. Prioritize

Look at what you've written down for your WIN and Future. Start to prioritize by grouping like-minded things together into themes like "work," "family," or "self-care." Next, look at your planner and write down when you would ideally like to practice self-care FIRST. Remember, self-care is never selfish!

Next, look at what is essential on your schedule. What can only you do and what needs to be shifted so you can make time for self-care? (Ex: Maybe your husband fixes breakfast or drops the kids off at school so you can fit an early morning workout in before you head to the office.)

Finally, what items can you ask for help in? (Ex: hiring someone to assist you with cleaning your home so you can invite people over without being stressed out.) 

If this exercise has been helpful for you, be sure to check out our seasonal wellness guides. In every season, we help busy working women remove distractions + fight fatigue so you can focus on What's Important Now! 

Your schedule is going to look different than mine. That’s okay! The goal is not to have a perfect schedule but to focus on What's Important Now (Your WIN). To focus on our WIN we have to STOP comparing ourselves to others. 

Let us take a step back and realize that nobody has a perfect schedule, perfect life, perfect family, or perfect kids. Superheroes are not real. But women who love, care, provide, create, and serve others are real.

Those women are real. And, I bet that woman is you.

You are an amazing busy working mama, and you don’t need to wish away the life that you’ve been given. Sure, make some changes if they are necessary but don’t get trapped in comparing your life to someone else’s. Celebrate your victories, both big and small, and know that you were created for a purpose.

So go and be you today. And when your friend asks you how you do it all, tell her the truth – the happy and the hard – and encourage her to celebrate the family she’s been given to serve as a mom.