Self-Care A-Z: Making Self-Care a Habit
by Erlene Grise-Owens, Ed.D., LCSW, MSW, MRE, lead co-editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals
Self-care needs to be individualized, integrated, and intentional. It needs to be structured, SMART, and sustainable. Habits engage all these components. Forming positive habits is crucial to self-care success.
Below, I list some helpful resources on habits. In particular, Gretchen Rubin synthesizes lots of research in an accessible and applicable way.
Establishing Base Habits
Habits are repeated behaviors. The “invisible architecture of daily life,” habits comprise 40% of our daily life (Rubin, p. 7)! Want to build sustainable self-care? Habits! Rubin asserts, “Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision-making and from using self-control” (p. 5). Establishing positive habits requires intentionality and integration into daily life.
Literature on habits identifies four pillars. The first pillar is foundational habits. These habits serve as a base for establishing other habits. As Rath’s (2013) book title says: Eat, Move, Sleep. Rubin adds uncluttering as a foundational habit. And I think connection is a foundational habit.
Base habits affect every aspect of our self-care! Especially in toxic workplaces, I’ve learned to radically focus on base habits. (Sleeping = SuperPower! Nature Walk = SuperPerspective!😊) This focus helps me navigate stressful situations with more clarity and well-being.
Tracking Self-Care
A second pillar is monitoring, which has “uncanny power” (Rubin, p. 46). I think the adage, “We manage what we monitor,” has a corollary: What we monitor begins to matter!
The SMART self-care plan is an important tool for monitoring. Also, for many years, I’ve done a hand-written daily diary to track my SMART self-care commitments. Along with base habits, I track particular goals, such as my professional commitment to structured writing time. I have a “bonus category” for self-care commitments not done daily. My form includes a section for daily gratitude—a habit that has exponential effects. This year, I’m monitoring my 20 for 2020 commitments. I have a somewhat idiosyncratic points system that works for me. Monitoring helps me see barriers and establish patterns. (See excerpted example below.)
Rubin’s “Better than Before Journal” provides additional resources for tracking habits. The Bullet Journal Method (BuJo), described as “a mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system,” is another popular approach for tracking. These resources and others help me refine self-care monitoring.
Scheduling is a third habits pillar. SMART plans include setting specific, regular times for a commitment. This pillar may be challenging for creatives, who resist structure. However, for instance, unless I schedule writing time, it gets pushed aside. (Caveat: Not everything that matters needs to be structured and monitored. Find your balance.)
Self-care is a lifestyle. And, as Rubin observes, “How we schedule our days is how we live our lives” (p. 90).
Engaging Accountability and Assessment
Accountability is the final pillar. Accountability may include exercise partners, study groups, office team members, and such. Monitoring and scheduling provide forms of accountability, especially when combined with routine assessment.
I use a “What’s working/What needs work” approach in assessing programmatic, professional, and personal commitments. This approach takes a strengths approach and allows for applying what’s working to areas needing improvement. For example, through weekly assessments, I realized I was falling into being on social media in late evening, which interferes with sleep. I asked my partner to remind me to shut down screens! This gentle nudging works for us in other areas.
Using Awareness
“Awareness” is the “A” in our A-Z Self-Care Handbook. The integral role of awareness for self-care aligns with Rubin’s emphasis on self-awareness in building habits. Habits are individualized. Like all self-care, overarching universal concepts apply; but individuals vary in desired habits and implementation.
Early in her book, Rubin offers pragmatic strategies for this self-awareness, including a chapter on “Distinctions—Different Solutions for Different People.” She delineates several questions, such as: Are you a marathoner, sprinter, or procrastinator? and What do you value? In the final book chapters, she provides an array of specific strategies for habit-forming, such as pairing, changing your environment, and the critical use of rewards and treats. She discusses how self-awareness can refine these strategies.
Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework is especially useful. Rubin’s framework asks “How does a person respond to expectations?” She designates four categories: Upholders respond readily to both outer and inner expectations. Questioners meet expectations only if they believe it’s justified. Obligers respond readily to outer expectations, but struggle with inner expectations. And Rebels resist all expectations. Here’s a link that includes a brief quiz to find your tendency.
People with different tendencies need to approach habit formation somewhat differently. I think most helping professionals are “obligers.” Rubin says obligers are particularly susceptible to burnout because they respond to outer expectations and have “trouble telling people ‘no’” (p. 23). Sound familiar? For obligers, external accountability is key.
Use self-awareness to (re)design a SMART(er) self-care plan for building positive habits. Monitor and schedule. Make self-care a habit!
Peace, Love, & Self-Care,
Erlene
Selected Resources
Carroll, R. (2018). The bullet journal method: Track the past, order the present, design the future. Penguin Random House.
Clear, J. (2018). Tiny changes, remarkable results--Atomic habits—An easy & proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. Penguin Random House.
Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habits: Why we do what we do in life and business. Penguin Random House.
Duhigg, C. (2016). The power of habit—Smarter faster better—The secrets of being productive in life and business. Penguin Random House.
Rath, T. (2013). Eat Move Sleep—How small choices lead to big changes. MissionDay.
Rubin, G. (2015). Better than before—What I learned about making and breaking habits—to sleep more, quit sugar, procrastinate less, and generally build a happier life. Penguin Random House.
Rubin, G. (2017). The four tendencies—The indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better (and other people’s lives better, too). Penguin Random House.
Dr. Erlene Grise-Owens, Ed.D., LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Partner in The Wellness Group, ETC. This LLC provides evaluation, training, and consultation for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals. As a former faculty member and graduate program director, she and a small (but mighty!) group of colleagues implemented an initiative to promote self-care as part of the social work education curriculum. Previously, she served in clinical and administrative roles. She has experience with navigating toxicity and dysfunction, up-close and personal! Likewise, as an educator, she saw students enter the field and quickly burn out. As a dedicated social worker, she believes the well-being of practitioners is a matter of social justice and human rights. Thus, she is on a mission to promote self-care and wellness!