Lia

Welcome back to the podcast everybody. This week, Briar and I want to talk about some self-care and healthy habits. Briar, take us away.

Briar

When it comes to self-care, there's so much to talk about this in the media these days, and it's something that obviously is incredibly important, and I feel like especially as women when we are now trying to do it all, and have full-time jobs and families and households, and things that we are trying to do that often we put ourselves last.

And one of the things that I like to use personally to make sure that we are getting into that daily self-care is having my morning routines and my evening routines, because it feels like I can sort of bookend my day with some really simple self-care things, if that makes sense.

So things like our morning routine, I'll just give some examples of things that are part of my morning routine and some of them you just do naturally as part of your normal healthy habits like brushing your teeth and having your shower and whatnot.

But I actually write those into my morning routine. So having my coffee and reading my novel I have in my morning routine.

Doing some sort of movement is in my morning routine. Making my kids lunches and getting them sorted for the day is part of my morning routine.

Doing my shower, my skincare and brushing my teeth. Those are things that are in my morning routine. And again, it doesn't have to take long, but it ensures that I do those things for me to start my day out in a healthy manner.

And I'm curious, Lia, do you have a morning routine that you start your day with? I know you have younger children at your house, a younger child at your house than I do.

dDo you feel like you're able to get in some self-care before you start your day, or do you have a different way of getting that in?

Lia

This is a great question, Briar, because I am, I feel in some ways, constantly trying to figure this out, how to get something for myself during the day.

What I have set up for myself is a morning routine that I do after school drop-off for my daughter.

So in the mornings, I'm solo parenting, it's just me and my three-year-old, so it's mainly focused on her getting her dressed, getting her having breakfast, and getting out the door for school drop-off.

I am fortunate that I work from home, so then I can come back home and I can do some of those more self-care things, and I do try to try to build that into a morning routine when I get home.

So like you said, basic self-cares like showering and getting dressed. Which, when you work from home, is actually really tricky, right? Because it's really to get home and just go, “Oh, no, I need to get started to work and I'll have a shower after I do this task.”

And then the next task comes up and then someone emails you and then someone calls you and then like, and then before you know it, it's the end of the day and you haven't had a shower yet.

So it's actually, it's tricky when you work from home. But I do try to do that. I do try to do those basics. And I try to do some movements. And I try to do some personal financial kind of check in and management.

But one thing that came up for me, Briar, when you were talking and saying, it can take a short amount of time or a big amount of time, right?

I have in the past used a concept called the Miracle Morning, have you heard of the miracle morning.

Briar

I think so. Remind me about that because there's so many different ones out there.

Lia

So It's a book and I will look up the name of the book and put it in the show notes for everybody, but there's, I believe there's six things that this book recommends you do as part of your morning routine. https://miraclemorning.com/

And in that book, he says, you can take, you could do each of those things for one minute. So your morning routine is six minutes. You could do them each for 20 minutes, if you want, or 30 minutes, or an hour, if your morning could somehow last six hours, go for it.

But, but I, so I have in the past had a six minute morning routine that involved movement and some reading and some meditation.

And it was really, really short and really condensed. I think what is nice about these things, what we're talking about, sort of anchoring your days with those morning and evening routines that involve that self care and those healthy habits is, you know, even if you do one minute of movement and if you do one minute of journaling or one minute of reading something, whether it's a business or a novel or something motivational, that's still better than nothing. And it still just gives you that place of centering to kickstart your day, or at the end of the day, that place of centering to kind of close out your day.

Briar

Yeah, I really love that. And I love the idea of having five or six things, and then you can do them whenever, whether you do them all together, or even if you spread them out.

I actually put an alarm on my phone recently to stop part way through my day, because like you said before, when I start getting into work, I could end up sitting in this chair for six hours straight without really realizing it, right?

So setting that alarm to get up and get water or make tea, or, you know, standing outside on my back deck, it takes some deep breaths for some fresh air in the sunlight.

It's like whatever it is that you need for that self-care in those moments. And sometimes setting an alarm can be a really good trick for that.

I know I'm talking with healthcare clients of mine, getting water in can be really hard to do.

So setting a little alarm like once an hour to remind you to drink some water. And inevitably the more water you drink, the more you have to go to the bathroom, so then you're getting up more frequently and again you're getting out of your chair and that's good news.

That's good for our health and our well-being, right? But yeah, so having little alarms sometimes can help trigger you to remind you to do self-care things.

So if you're really struggling and you're wanting to do things, but you're finding it tricky to remember, set your alarms. And that's a really good way to get it going. 

Okay, let's talk about evening routines. So do you have things that you do every night after bedtime is done in your house?

Lia

Yeah, my evening routine is pretty basic and pretty simple right now. It's just washing my face and writing in my five-year journal, which has spaced for about maybe two or three sentences. So that's it. So it's a really quick note. And those are the only things I do consistently. I do try to  read just a book for fun, not a business book or anything like that. A book for fun in bed before I turn off my light. And that's it for me.

Briar

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, for me, we have things like turning off lights in certain parts of our house because it helps all of us wind down.

So like after dinner and cleaning up of the kitchen, the lights go out, the kitchen is closed. It helps me with my evening snacking, as well as reminding my boys we're done eating for the day. But it also helps mentally wind down when we have dimmer lights. 

Definitely once my children are in bed, then I do the same as you, my skincare, my teeth.

I also spend time reading and journaling in the evenings. I find journaling in the mornings really tricky because my brain is not fully awake so I like to do it at the end of my day.

And then depending on how my body is feeling, I may also do an evening gentle stretch before I get into bed.

But the evenings are a little less cumbersome in terms of my routine because I also find evenings are easier to let my routine slide because I'm really tired and it's easier for me just to hop into bed and go, forget it, I'll do it, you know, do that tomorrow.

So keeping my evening routine short has been really good. But I'm also a morning person. Some people are evening people and really like to spend a good few hours in the evening after their kids go to bed doing the things that they love to do and spending their me time in the evenings as opposed to the mornings.

So it doesn't really matter. we said, it doesn't matter when you do it. Just finding time for yourself and making sure that you've got that individual time to help you feel more balanced as a human being. Right. And we don't get sucked into that whirlwind of just being a business owner or being a parent full time and it being so overwhelming.

You know, having those times for yourself can really help you feel a little bit more balanced overall.

Lia

For sure and I think bringing this back to entrepreneurship and out of just personal life is like we were talking about working from home and how it's easy to get sucked into work and put those things aside. I think that is very much true for many entrepreneurs as well. Right. It's easy to get a text on your phone from an employee or see an email come in through your inbox even if you're not planning to look at emails, right? And then suddenly your day gets completely sucked out from under your feet and you end up at the end of the day not having taken those moments for yourself and not having given yourself those healthy habits and healthy routines.

So I think it is really, really challenging to put these routines in place and actually stick to them. And so making sure that what you set out yourself is is actually doable. It is something that is not an overwhelming amount of routine. And that's why I like the idea of a five or six minute thing, right? It can be that simple, but just give yourself something once or twice a day and set a reminder on your phone if you need to, like Briar suggested, but just really help yourself step out of that business owner role. So that you can come back to it refreshed and come back to it with a clearer mind and a calmer mind.

And it actually makes your work as an entrepreneur that much more effective when you can do those things. And our work in any avenue, right, whether it be as a parent or an entrepreneur or a dance teacher, when you can come to it from a place of calmness and centered, you're always going to show up and you're always going to perform better than when you are rushed and overwhelmed and busy and scattered.

And so it's just a matter of continuing to come back to these things. So many times I have gotten off track.

I have not followed the morning routine that I set out for myself or the evening routine that I set out for myself.

And it's a continual reminder for me that it is really important and I really need to do it, even if I don't feel that I have the time.

And that is something that I have to remind myself of all the time. And I get off track and then I have to get back on track with it.

Briar

Yeah, I love that. And two things came up for me there, Lia, as you were talking about it. The first, yeah, I love the idea of really making sure that it's realistic.

And something that I actually love chatting about and coaching on is stacking habits. So, you know, something that you do every day, like brushing your teeth.

If you can stack a new habit with that, like say, you want to start taking your vitamins day, but you keep forgetting, putting your vitamins next to your bathroom sink so that you're reminded as you're brushing your teeth to take them.

Or, you know, you're journaling with your readings so that your two books can be side by side on your nightstands like things like that helped us to stack our habits to make them easier to remember and starting slow, like you said, you know, maybe choose just one new thing to add and do it for a full month. Once it has become a habit, it's easier to add on a next one so that you're not starting with 15.

And then the second was the point of sort of reassessing and looking at what is working, what isn't working like we've talked about before and being able to readjust those routines and know that it's okay if something isn't working to drop things from that routine, reassess what you truly need in that stage of your life and create new habits and new routines if you feel like you need to and not to be upset or self-deprecating when we need to make those adjustments and changes.

So those are the two things that came up for me as you were chatting about that.

Lia

Definitely. We'd love to hear if you have a morning or evening routine and how it has helped you as in your personal life also in your business life so send us a message.

You can find us at thebalanceentrepreneur.ca and we will talk to you next week.