Summer Self-Care: 10 Tips for Unplugging and Nurturing Your Well-Being

Jul 30

Boon Coach, Kathleen Fariss

Here we are in the midst of summer. For some, it's the perfect time to unplug and recharge and for others, depending on the industry they work in, it's the busiest time of the year which can make unplugging and reenergizing more challenging.

If you find yourself in a season where you are having difficulty carving out time to unplug and re-energize, here are 10 tips to unplug and nurture your well-being:

Pause. Recognize that you deserve and need to take time for yourself. Taking time to honor your mind, body and soul through self-care is all about intentionality and prioritizing.
Clarity counts. Envision what it would be like coming back from a vacation, day off, hour out from work, and how you would feel. What would your pictures look like from that trip? What do you want to remember experiencing from that time away from work? Then make it happen by reengineering how you arrived there.
Apply a business process to your life. If you were going to map out a business process to ensure you achieved a goal at work, what would you do? Apply the same process to your time away.
Human being vs human doing. The learning is always in the pause. When we think about how we want to show up and be, it gives us more clarity around how to hold space for ourselves to reconnect internally and with others and fill our self-care “buckets”.
Set boundaries. Give yourself permission. I know that sounds weird, and we need to do that at times to break old habits. Share with your supervisor, staff, and clients when you will be off and how work will move forward while you are out.
Set daily intentions. Some people like to do this in the morning and some in the evening. There is no wrong process to follow as long as you hold yourself accountable for setting the daily intention of how you want to show up for yourself. I use a 5-minute journal app as it has morning and evening meditations.
Rules of engagement. Write out how you will choose *keyword* choose to not check your text messages, emails, Slack notes, Team communications, etc. Then honor that rule by holding that boundary for yourself. If you have to check emails, give yourself a time and window to do so and then hold that time and only that time.
Leave your phone on the counter. When you schedule time to decompress, have a staycation, or go out with family and friends, leave your phone out of sight so you can be fully present. It allows your mind to rest.
Ask your family to ask you questions. When we are told what to do to unplug, what do we end up doing? It’s like when Mom and Dad said, “put your clothes away” or “don’t eat that cookie before dinner.” We did exactly the opposite. Well, some of us did. Have a family member ask you open-ended questions about what you would like to do to unplug. It’s more empowering when we do what we map out for ourselves rather than doing something we were directed to do.
What’s your one thing? If you think about one thing you can do to ensure you unplug, what might that look like? It could be stepping outside to see the sun and take soak it in for ten minutes. It could be pausing to call a family member to say hello. It could be getting in the car and going to your favorite store for an hour to gain a different perspective. What’s your one thing?

When you plan your trip, day off or staycation, the one word that is most important to remember is “grace”. Go easy on yourself. Self-care is a skill that can be learned, so start with setting intentions around your "one thing" and move one step at a time.