When we are busy or stressed, we often forget what we need, just go on autopilot managing the day and ourselves and miss opportunities to practice self-care. When we are overwhelmed sometimes making any decision can be really hard work. 

Having a self-care plan is a really great place to start because it gets you thinking about what kinds of activities, rituals and what people you need around you who help you to feel safe, connected, engaged, nourished.

Self-care plans are living documents that will evolve and change with you. Revisit your self-care plan every three months to review and update as you need. 

Planning for your self-care is really useful for a number of reasons: 

• Helps us to stay focused when busy, stressed or overwhelmed. 

• Helps us to identify what we need. 

• Helps us to identify what is helpful when we are tired, stressed and/or need to relax. 

• We get a little dopamine kick when we complete tasks off our list

We have created our own self-care planner which incorporates prompts to get you thinking about what you need daily, weekly and monthly to stay well.

Please see our example below, we hope this is a helpful guide to get you started.

How to use this self-care planner:

Self-care covers many domains of life. At the top of our planner, we have listed the range of domains as a prompt to help you think about your life as a whole (Emotional, social, spiritual, mental, physical, personal, professional, space, financial, environmental).

You don’t need to address every single one of them all the time. Sometimes you may focus on some, then change and focus on others.

My Self Care Goal: This will be individual and different for everyone and guided by what’s important to you right now.

Some examples of self-care goals may be:

• To start practicing self-care.

  • To learn how to identify signs of stress and develop strategies to better manage stress.

  • Prioritise rest, sleep and relaxation.

  • Have more fun and play in my day.

  • Develop a morning routine.

  • Explore movement and exercise and find something you find enjoyable or increase/decrease exercise.

  • Learn more about how to manage a mental health issue you are already experiencing.

  • Explore strategies to help manage anxiety.

  • Prioritise taking breaks at work.

  • Spend more time with family & friends.

  • Decrease the amount of time spent on social media.

  • Focus on imputing boundaries and saying no.

  • Create a financial budget and get across finances.

  • Start practicing mindfulness.

DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY

The plan is set out this way to get you thinking about what self-care activities you need daily, weekly and monthly to optimise your wellbeing.

WHEN I FEEL, I NEED

This section is getting you to think about those times when you may feel tired, stressed, overwhelmed, irritable, you have lots of pressure at work, you are feeling really low in your mood etc. Do you know of specific strategies that help you to manage in these times?