Episode 11: No More Excuses: Prioritizing Self-Care One Step at a Time
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Health is everything and yet, when you're a busy, working mom it can be so easy to let the everyday habits of self-care fall to the backburner. Seemingly basic healthy habits like drinking water, brushing your teeth, and getting enough sleep can be hard to keep up with when you just don't have the time or the energy. Through real-life examples, including the story of a client who struggled to drink enough water, Katelyn walks you through the exact strategies she uses with her clients to make healthy habits and self-care more manageable and sustainable.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
01:13 The Importance of what I'm calling, "healthy habits"
06:04 Real-life examples that my clients are working on
11:06 Step-by-step process for troubleshooting and following through
16:42 Adapting to life changes
22:40 Get support with your healthy habits with a Planning Intensive session
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
The creatine supplement Katelyn is currently taking*
Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing
*Talk to your healthcare provider about any new supplement you plan to take.
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you this week? I am feeling much better than I was a day ago. I had a new to me experience. I had an episode of Vertigo. I woke up with it yesterday morning and it was, I have to say, pretty debilitating. I was in bed for at least half the day, and I've struggled on and off, actually, in the last few years, especially with inner ear issues, hearing issues.
I don't need to go into all of the details, but vertigo was one that every time, you know, they run through dizziness, hearing loss, pressure, fullness in your ears, all of the symptoms, vertigo was one that I said, no, I never have vertigo. Well, now I can say that I have. So any of you that experience that on a regular basis, wow, , very disorienting, very disorienting.
I am happy that I am, I'm back upright, standing, moving around without feeling like I'm on a boat or that the room is spinning around me. And it was so interesting because. I had planned this week to talk about a facet of self-care, and after that episode, it was just a reminder that health is everything.
Health is everything. So it got me thinking about all of the little things that we can be doing to take care of ourselves on a consistent basis and how easy it is to put those on the back burner and prioritize. Other things, everyone else around us. I had a request come in for an episode on the podcast to discuss self care.
and I'm not going to label this the self care episode that maybe encompasses everything that that word is. And I will certainly consider future episodes to. tease apart, unravel that label, that thing that we all are feeling like we should be doing more of. But today I want to talk about what I'm going to call healthy habits.
A client of mine used this phrase just last week in a coaching session and I thought it was a great, way to categorize some of the things that I want to talk about today. If that doesn't resonate with you though, I'm going to give you examples and you come up with what does resonate with you, but it's essentially taking care of ourselves in very basic ways.
Moving your body, drinking water, taking vitamins or supplements if you are doing that, brushing your teeth, washing your face, getting enough sleep. Those are just a few examples. But I think these healthy habits, if you will, this taking care of yourself in a very basic way makes it possible for you to potentially look to other ways that you can care for your soul, your mental wellbeing, your mindset, that next level.
of self care, that really deep or nourishing self care is made possible, right? When you have your health, when you are doing the basics. It had me thinking about years ago when Mother Nurture, my coaching practice, was in its proof of concept phase. Was this really necessary? Would anyone be looking for support as a working mom?
Um, I did a One day in person event. It was here in Cincinnati where I live. It was for, I think it was targeted for new moms. I can't remember who sponsored it or put it on. I facilitated a workshop there and then also had a table in the sort of vendor sponsor area where moms could wander from table or booth to booth and check out different services and products and you know, you can picture it.
And. As a part of my table, I had a chalkboard easel next to it and asked something along the lines of, you know, what is self care for you? And I invited anyone who stopped by to chat or to visit my table to jot something down, take a piece of chalk and write, what is self care to you? And several women wrote, brushing my teeth, brushing my teeth is self care.
And they sort of chuckled, maybe felt a little embarrassed that something as basic as brushing their teeth was considered self care, but they were both holding infants, newborns. And if you are in that stage or you remember that stage, it can be so challenging to do even the most Basic of self care to brush your teeth, brush your hair, wash your face.
And those things matter when all of your time, energy, and attention is going toward taking care of an infant, then a toddler. And then you add maybe more kids to the mix or a child with special needs. It is hard to actually find the time. And I think even more importantly, the energy to complete even the most basic.
items, tasks of self care.
But in the same way that as our kids get teeth and the pediatric dentist tells you that they should be brushing their teeth in the same way that we prioritize, making sure that our kids develop the habit of brushing their teeth. We also deserve that basic care and attention, but I know that finding the energy can be hard.
So. I want to talk in this episode about how to find that energy, how to do those things that you know you want to do, that you know are good for you, but just continue to slip, that continue to not get done. And I know they're not getting done because I hear this over and over again in coaching sessions.
So I know some of you listening out there are also struggling to consistently do some of these things that you want to be doing for yourself. My clients I know are not the only ones. They're always representative of what is coming up more broadly for working moms everywhere. Now maybe you're listening and you have brushing your teeth down.
You're brushing your teeth twice a day. You're flossing once a day. Maybe you're washing your face consistently every night, drinking plenty of water, those types of things. But maybe there's a new self care habit that you want to implement. I want you to keep listening because I'm going to share tips for how to get started, whether it's something new that you're adding in.
You know, I, As shared in my newsletter recently, I've started taking creatine, for example, as a supplement. I've listened to a couple of podcast episodes and read some research from experts that say this could be a supplement that might be very helpful as I head into perimenopause. And that was new for me, how to fit that in, how to add that in.
So we're going to be talking about getting started either with something that's new, recommitting to something that maybe has fallen off, or following through on something that you're just not doing. I'm going to use real life examples, real life examples that that come up in coaching, one in particular that did come up in a recent session to walk you through How to approach either starting up a new habit or recommitting to one of these healthy habits or to just troubleshoot, right?
How to do something that you know you should, but aren't doing. So the example that I want to use as we walk through this together is drinking water. I hear this a lot. I feel like I should be drinking water. I know I should be drinking more water. I'm just not, I'm not a water person or I just can't seem to remember.
And I think for a lot of my clients is that, they're working so hard during the day. They're focused, they're busy. Maybe for you, you're moving from one meeting to the next, and before you know it, the day's over, and you're off to do kid pickup and into the dinner time and evening routine, and realizing at the end of the day that at best, maybe you've had one or two glasses of water, that you've existed on coffee or soda or tea or whatever else, and not had a full bottle of water.
This was my client the other week, coffee for most of the day, just not even realizing, not even thinking to take a drink of water. Well, the first thing that we did in this instance was to explore why water? what is even important about drinking water? What do you think it will change? For this client, she is pretty sure she's dehydrated most days.
Sometimes she gets headaches, has dry eyes, wonders if her skin might look or feel better, especially in the wintertime. Wondering also if maybe her energy would be positively impacted by drinking more water, by being hydrated. And here's the thing, she thinks these things will improve. But until she actually makes a change, until she actually starts to drink more water, she'll always wonder.
Maybe you have a habit like that too. I wonder what it would feel like to get more sleep. I wonder if I walked a little bit more, moved my body, or ate some more vegetables in a given day, if I might actually feel better. Don't you want to know? Don't you want to know, one way or the other, whether that actually has an impact or not?
Maybe drinking more water doesn't change any of those things like you thought it would. Well, now you can cross it off the list and look at other potential suspects. What else might have an impact? Now you know that water is not the thing that will make it better, and you can stop wondering. You can stop beating yourself up for not doing the thing.
You tried it, it didn't work. Or maybe you try it and it does fulfill all of the things that you thought it would, and now you actually feel better. One way or the other, taking action is what gets you the information you need, but it starts with asking, what is important about this to you? What are you curious might change if you implemented this?
So the next piece then is to get curious about why aren't you doing the thing already? What's stopping you? What is getting in your way? And I'm talking down to the very nitty gritty details of why. For example, what are you drinking your water out of? This was what my client and I discovered in her session. She said, I have one of those Stanley cups, you know, those big, like, tumblers with the handle and the straw that are all the rage, or they were all the rage, I can't keep up with all the water bottle trends, but she had a Stanley. She got it for Christmas as a gift. It's a nice, Water receptacle. It's a nice water bottle.
They're not cheap. And I said, well, where is that right now? She said, it's just sitting on the counter. Okay, so she's got a nice water bottle. She's just not using it. So then I asked, well, what's it like taking that to work with you on the days when you do go in to work? She said, well, actually, it's really cumbersome.
I asked because I have one, so I knew part of me expected this to be the answer, because I also find it to be cumbersome. It's heavy. It's great when it sits on my desk, but to carry it around or transport it anywhere, it's kind of a pain. And she said the same thing. It's cumbersome. It's heavy. And then she said, in fact, Katelyn, now that you mention it, just last week I did take it with me in the car and I knocked it over because it has a straw or if you leave the straw in, it's not leak proof.
She said I knocked it over in the car and actually water spilled out on my son's artwork and I was so embarrassed. I felt so bad that that had happened. So, okay, she's got a nice water bottle, but it's actually not working for her. And when she's spending a couple of days a week out of the house, long days at the office and other locations, it's just not practical.
So what would it be like to take a smaller water bottle? One that seals and doesn't spill, one that you can easily toss in a bag because your hands are full enough as it is, something that's lighter, not so cumbersome. What if the Stanley is for at home use and it should sit on your desk? Or what if it lives on your desk at the office?
And then you don't need one to carry with you back and forth. Suddenly, it felt more doable, and she didn't feel like it was all her fault. She realized that, oh, well, actually, I'm trying to use this nice gift that I got that everybody says is a great water bottle, but I actually don't love it. And she actually had an idea for what she might love better.
So, it's getting into the nitty gritty of why aren't you doing the thing. Next, it's about setting your future self up for success. I read a book not too long ago recommended to me by a client called Uptime, and one of the sections in it talked about being your own executive assistant. And, um, The example, I think it was the example shared.
If not, it's the one that comes to mind for me. When you think of maybe an executive assistant who wants their manager, the executive to execute on a task, for example, get this contract signed, right? As the assistant, you would probably highlight the lines where the initials or signatures are required.
You might put one of those little post it sticky tabs there, and you would put it on the desk with a pen, so that all he or she needs to do is sit down and sign. It's done. They don't have to make, let's hope they read it, but maybe it's something that they do routinely and they just need a signature on it,
they don't have to look for the pen. They don't have to search through the paperwork to find the places where they need to sign. They just follow the tabs and sign on the line. How can you do that for yourself in your own everyday life?
If you really want to drink water, what can you do to make it super easy to follow through to put the water bottle somewhere where you will quote unquote trip over it, not actually trip over it, right? But it will be there and it will be so easy to do. So
as we were exploring this section of the process, she actually said, well, you know, I don't, I don't love water on its own. Actually, if I'm being honest, what I really love is water with lemon. I love water with lemon in it. I actually do too, that's my favorite way to drink water. And she said, but I, I just don't have time in the mornings when I'm rushing or I'm leaving the house for the office, or even when I'm working at home, I'm dropping kids off.
I don't have the time to slice and squeeze lemon into my water. She said, I know that sounds so small and a quick task, but it's just, it's not happening. It's not happening. So we thought, well, I wonder if sliced lemon keeps in the fridge, if you put it in a container or a Ziploc bag or something, could you slice the lemon into wedges on, a Saturday or Sunday and have them ready to go, so all you have to do is grab one, it's already sliced, the hard part is done.
Well that's worth a try. Do you have lemons in the house? No, actually we don't right now. Okay, can you put them on the grocery list? Can you have a bag of lemons in the house so that this weekend all you have to do is slice them and get them ready to drop into your water in the morning? That's the work of setting your future self up for success.
Thinking ahead to the steps that might get in your way, that might slow you down, and doing them ahead of time. Then the last piece of all of this, especially if you are coming back to a habit that maybe has fallen to the back burner, that you want to recommit to now, and that is to let go of how it used to look.
Maybe at one time in your life you were great at drinking water. Maybe you didn't have to carry a diaper bag and a pump bag and lunches for everybody out to the car, and holding a Stanley water cup was no big deal. But your life has changed. And if you keep trying what worked before and it's not working now, it's time to shift.
It's time to let that vision go and try something new. My bedtime routine is a perfect example of this. I've been doing it for years. It will change your life if this is where you struggle as well. I was struggling with young kids to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed. After getting the kids down, I would fall asleep on the couch or, I'd be going in and out of their room to soothe the crying baby or to get a toddler another drink of water.
And I was just too tired to do those things. Honestly, just no energy to do any of that. By the time. I was ready to climb into bed, there was no way I could turn on a light and splash my face with water or brush my teeth. It was too much. So I shifted and I started to get myself ready at the same time as my kids or immediately after putting them to bed.
I would walk right from their rooms where I had said, good night, I love you, sweet dreams, and go right into my bathroom and immediately brush my teeth and wash my face. Then, if I dozed off on the couch or was too tired after reading a couple chapters of my book to get up and go into the bathroom and do those things, it didn't matter.
I had already gotten myself ready for bed. Would I have been in my pajamas with my teeth brushed and my face washed by 8 or 8. 30 p. m. before I had kids? No way. No way. But my life looks different now, and so I had to shift what it looks like to follow through on these healthy habits.
Other habits that come up frequently in coaching that we troubleshoot and walk through this process, with are, brushing teeth, of course, we've talked about, taking vitamins, supplements, skin care, I can't tell you the number of clients who just want to remove their makeup at night or just wash their face and put on a moisturizer or put on sunscreen in the morning as we get older, eating vegetables, Drinking a smoothie, going to bed earlier.
Oof, that's a huge one, getting more sleep. That's a healthy habit that you're just not following through on. So think about these four steps. What about this thing is important to you? What about taking your vitamins is important. Remembering that you need to experiment to see if it really has the impact that you hope it will.
If it does great. If it doesn't, now, you know, you can move on to something else. You can release it and stop feeling guilty for not following through. Then you need to get curious. Why is this not working? What about what you're doing now is not working? Taking your vitamins, for example, with breakfast isn't working.
Well, what else might be possible? Could you take them at bedtime? Could you take them after you get out of the shower? Do it in your bathroom? Do you need to take them at the office? Then set your future self up for success. Be your own assistant and make it easy to follow through. Maybe you need to buy a pill organizer and keep it at your desk at work, or move the vitamin bottle to your bathroom and make sure that you always have a glass of water in there so you can take it in the morning.
Put the thing where you're going to see it, where you're going to use it, and get it there in advance. Just like that assistant who's got the contract ready on the desk with the pen and the post it note right where you need to sign. And then lastly, let go. Let go of how things used to look. It looks different now.
Your life looks different now. So what? You have a pill organizer that you thought only your grandmother used, right? Your brain is full. If it helps you get the thing done, do it. If it means getting ready for bed earlier, do it. If it means getting a different water bottle even though you have a perfectly good one, do that.
Let go of what's not working and how things used to be.
I know that clients bring these types of challenges to our sessions because it is about doing this thing and the impact it has on how you feel. Drinking water, getting sleep, moving your body, anything else that you are curious about, it does have an impact on how you feel. But in equal measure, it's also about following through on the things that you've been meaning to or wanting to do for a while.
It's not having that guilt for not doing the thing, feeling frustrated with yourself for not following through. Ugh, I didn't do it again, right? I'm going to beat myself up. I'm going to feel badly about it. It's not having it hang over your head. That is worth so much. Probably worth as much as the results that you get from actually doing the healthy habit in the first place.
And if you need motivation, I love thinking about the healthy habits that I'm modeling to my kids. The things that I'm doing to just take care of my basic needs, that those things are important. My needs matter. Brushing my teeth is important. Taking care of my body is important. Just like Taking care of theirs is important as well.
And we're instilling those habits in them.
Remember that coaching is about having someone else catch your blind spots, someone with a fresh outside perspective to help you come up with ideas and changes and shifts that will make following through so much easier. Like my client who would never probably have realized that her Stanley water cup was getting in the way of her actually drinking water, or the fact that slicing a lemon takes too much time in the hustle and bustle of an early morning with kids.
It can be hard to read the label from inside the bottle, and that is my job as your coach. If you are wanting to implement or follow through on your own healthy habit or self care routine of any kind, And you want support. I encourage you to check out my planning intensive. It's a 90 minute strategy session where we will create an end to end plan for you, spot all of those blind spots and come up with solutions so you can follow through and start to feel and see results in your own life.
I just completed one of these last week and was amazed at how much we covered in just 90 minutes. You can learn more about me and about this session in particular to see if it's a right fit for you on my website at the mothernurture.Com forward slash planning dash intensive. As always, the links to everything that I talk about here on the podcast,
you can find in the show notes on my website at themothernurture. com forward slash podcast.
All right. I will talk with you soon until then take care and brush your teeth. All right. Talk soon. Bye.
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