Welcome to lesson three, your self care plan. Now that you've identified the various excuses that might be holding you back from focusing on self care, and have done some work to start removing those blocks in your life, it's time to move on. In this lesson, we're going to drill down to a few specific areas of your overall life balance plan, the self care categories. All of the areas of your life balance plan are important, of course, but putting an emphasis on the self care elements first, and then fitting everything else around that is going to lead to more balance. By the end of this lesson, you'll accomplish a few different things. First, you're gonna understand the five areas of your life that will lead to more peace, joy and fulfillment.

You'll also be able to identify the activities that you personally need to have in your life in order to feel healthy, calm and at peace. And you'll also have a concrete plan to implement those new activities into your life to enhance balance. Here are the five areas of your life that we're going to work on incorporating into your life balance plan first before you start adding in other activities. We'll go through each of these in more detail. But here's a quick overview. Mind, body, heart, soul, and community.

The mind category includes things like your thoughts, this is your internal world. This includes everything that you have going on in your head, and it also includes learning and self development. Number two is focus. This is your ability to pay attention to what you're doing in each moment. being focused means paying attention and not getting pulled off track or being distracted by other things. Three is organization.

This is how organized you are in your life. being organized in your mind usually leads to being more organized in your life. Our external situations are usually a reflection of our internal worlds. It is a spectrum with order on one side and chaos on the other. The more you can clear your mind of clutter and chaos. The more order in Balance you're gonna feel.

Another way to think about this area is feeling on top of things and calm versus out of control and living at the whim of external people and events. So for this category, you're going to want to include activities on your life balance plan that optimize your mind by improving the quality of your thoughts, guiding your attention to be more focused and getting mentally organized. The next category you should take into account is your body. This category includes your physical health, especially Fitness, Fitness usually include some sort of exercise, it can be walking, running, swimming, hiking, playing soccer, wakeboarding, kickboxing. The options are pretty much endless here. And I know this area can be really hard for working parents to fit in, but your physical health is a huge part of having a balanced life.

Even if you spend 10 to 20 minutes walking up and down the stairs at your house, or stretching or doing something that you find really fun that totally works. Get creative and think about how you can get physically It and fit that into your schedule no matter how mellow or intense it is. Number two is nutrition. Nutrition is how well you're eating. The food you eat is your fuel. For this area, consider how you can incorporate healthy eating into your schedule.

Number three is energy. Figuring out how to enhance your energy levels will go a long way to helping you feel more balanced. For this category, you're going to want to integrate activities that pump you up. This might also include talking to a doctor about whether you need certain supplements or vitamins to maximize your energy. Number four is sleep. Part of having enough energy is also making sure that you get enough sleep.

The amount you need is going to be unique to you. But odds are that you need more than seven or eight hours a night. working parents rarely get enough sleep. But putting a priority priority on getting enough sleep is incredibly important and living a balanced life. I know it's hard with young kids and demanding job and everything else you've got going on. But hopefully you've been able to put up some time and slow down the pace a little bit so that you can start getting into bed at a more reasonable hour at then you might have in the past.

And the final area for your body is water. Being dehydrated can actually make a huge impact on your body. Carry your water bottle with you and make sure that you're drinking at least half of your body weight and water every day. So category three is all about your heart. Your heart includes things like your emotions, your passions and your purpose. Your feelings are an important part of self care.

Make sure that you're acknowledging your feelings and not just letting things get bottled up are brushing things under the rug. Stay in touch with how you feel. Another area is your passions. your passions are what make your life worth living. your interests and hobbies are also important self care. These are the things that help you avoid feeling like you're just going through the daily grind.

Putting time and energy into your passions is a huge piece of having life balance. And if you're one of those people who's not sure what you're Question is go ahead and follow your curiosity instead. And the final area in this category is purpose. Your purpose is the reason you're here on the planet. It's what gives your life meaning. Your purpose helps you leave a legacy for your time here on Earth.

Your purpose is also usually something that you're uniquely good at. Make sure that you're spending a little time each week thinking about and striving to live your purpose. Your soul includes all of the things that help you get centered and tap into your higher self. I like to think of this category as everything that helps me become the best version of myself. For you, it might include things such as spirituality, I consider spirituality, my connection to a higher power. This is something that's bigger than me and guides me throughout my life.

I think of this as the universe or God, which are terms that I tend to use interchangeably. You might have a different definition and that's totally okay to religion is another area that you can look up. Your religion is essential. A system of faith. Religion is also usually a component of spirituality. And if you adhere to a particular set of religious beliefs, you're going to want to dedicate some time to this area in your life balance plan.

Three is meditation. Meditation is being still in silent, and trying to release all of those thoughts that consume your mind. When I meditate, I try to connect to my higher power as well. I asked for guidance and listen for wisdom when I meditate. Really, this is just me factoring in some time for stillness and solitude. Number four is prayer.

I think of meditation is listening. And I think of prayer is speaking. I use prayer to ask for grace and forgiveness and patience, and all sorts of other qualities that at times I don't really feel that capable of. I also like to hand over worries and problems that I'm having trouble figuring out all on my own. Sometimes life is just too big for me to handle by myself and I find relief and asking for help from something bigger than myself. You don't have to be religious to find This helpful, however you define a higher power will work for you.

And number five is reflection time. There are also times when it's important to just sit and relax, to try not to have everything on your agenda where you can let your mind wander a little bit. daydreaming and just letting inspiration strike is actually an important part of life. And it's something very few people really have time for it now that we have smartphones and tablets and TVs and computers and all of these other distraction devices. Category number five is your community. Your Community is all about your personal relationships, your social network.

At the end of the day, our relationships are really what's truly important. So making sure that you're nurturing those relationships is incredibly important to life balance as well. This includes a couple of different areas like marriage and romance. If you're in a relationship, you need to make sure that your partner isn't getting put on the back burner. making time for romance and fun and love is what's going to keep your marriage on track. Having that strong connection is what will allow you to make it through the difficult times.

And make no mistake, there can be some difficult times as a working parent. Something I learned a long time ago, is that there's no neutral in relationships. A lot of people think you can just coast and that your relationship will be maintained. But it's not really true. If you aren't moving toward each other in a relationship, you're moving away from each other. So just keep that in mind in your life.

If you aren't taking little moments to increase your connection with your partner on a regular basis, you're most likely moving further and further away from them. And the longer you let that connection go the long The larger the distance between you can become. It can be really hard to reconnect after letting a relationship go a little. It's much easier just to put love deposits into your relationship on an ongoing basis so that you know you're always moving back towards each other. Another area in this category is kids. quality time with your kids is also incredibly important.

If you're working parent, I know it's tempting to try and kill two birds with one stone when you're with your kids, you know like sending a quick reply to an email or getting on a quick call while you're playing with your kids. But they really do notice when your attention is somewhere else. It doesn't take much for them to feel loved and important and connected to you. So try and focus on spending quality time with your kids every day, where they are the focus of your attention. commit to making that time theirs alone, so you can increase your bond with them even if you spend 40 hours a week or more away from them. Number three is extended family.

Making time for extended family it's also really important. set time aside to reconnect with your parents or siblings or cousins close family and friends every month. If you live far away from these people try to schedule visits with them once a quarter so don't let those wet relationships weather. And finally, the community category includes friendships as well. Your friends are also very Important to having a balanced life. If you let some of your friendships slide because you're just too busy with work and kids and housework, try to make some time every month where you're going to get to catch up.

You can do playdates with your kids, but also try to have some grown up time as well. We all need to build those relationships with people who get us. So prioritize those relationships in your life as well. As you go through this exercise, you don't need to make time for every single one of these things every single day. spaced it out as your schedule allows, but also try to balance it so that you're touching on each one of these areas. Also, schedule time to dedicate to these activities first, and then fit your other responsibilities around these things.

Don't include activities into your schedule unless they truly fill you up. Also, don't feel obligated to do anything in particular just because you've always done it or everyone around you thinks that you should do it. Chart your own course on this one. Also, remember that you can always change it up. Keep evaluating yourself care on a regular basis and make changes as needed. None of this is set in stone.

The only pitfall you really need to be aware of here is that it's gonna be much more important to handle everything else before you focus on yourself care. Don't let this happen to you anymore. Commit to your self care and make that time sacred. Don't let anything stand in your way of your own health and well being. Let go of any guilt that you felt about taking care of yourself in the past. It's incredibly important both to you and your loved ones, that you stay healthy.

And the only way that's going to happen is if you make self care a priority. I actually have three different books to recommend for this lesson. All three of these books are based on spiritual principles and all three have become lifetime resources for me as I try to navigate my life. So I wanted to share them with you two. The first is called the power of now a guide to spiritual enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Lee. This main the main premise of this book Is that all of the suffering that we encounter in our lives is due to the fact that we aren't focusing on the present moment, but now totally believes that if we stopped obsessing so much about the future or the past, we'd have a lot more peace in our lives.

The next book is when things fall apart Hart advice for difficult times by Pema children. Pema showed around is sort of a modern monk. She's written several different books, but I love this one because it goes into how we can achieve more peace and happiness. by sitting with our feelings rather than doing everything we can to avoid them. She talks about how most of the suffering we feel is because of the stories we tell ourselves about our feelings, and not necessarily the feelings themselves. And once we can become comfortable facing our most uncomfortable feelings, we'll be able to move through them much faster.

The third book is an oldie but a goodie, the art of happiness a handbook for living by the Dalai Lama. You've probably heard of this book. This book came from several interviews that the Dalai Lama did, where he simply talks about his principles for living a healthy life and a happy life. So many of them are so simple but not always that easy to implement. I particularly liked listening to this audiobook. It's incredibly soothing, and it's brought a lot of clarity clarity for me over my lifetime.

So that's it for this lesson. Go ahead and download the exercise for this lesson, which is your self care plan. The exercise is going to walk you through how to break down each of these areas into the activities that are personal to you. I want you to identify the specific actions you're going to take to enhance your self care. So let's get started.