30 Day Self Care Challenge
I have gotten a lot of feedback from a recent Instagram post regarding my 30 Day self-care challenge in my bullet journal! So I’m going to write a little more about it! What better day to start on a self-care challenge than when there’s 30days left of the month and the year? Start the new year with preformed habits instead of making a goal that you forget about 2 weeks into the new year!
Self Care is so important, so I wanted to share a self-care challenge I found that will help progress your individual health, mentally, physically, and also declutter your brain and your life in general.
So this challenge is in 3 categories. If you look at this picture you can see that there are 3 different colors (pink, blue, and orange), and they each are for one of the 3 categories. Pink is for the decluttering your brain and your life in general ie. learning something new or getting organized. Blue is for progressing yourself physically ie. eating better or going for a workout. Lastly, orange is for progressing yourself mentally, ie. relaxing or self-care.
So I’ll go into a little more detail about each one!
Watch a Ted Talk: Whatever it’s about can be your choice, but any knowledge is better than no knowledge. You can honestly pick any Ted Talk you want, but just take some time with no distractions to focus all of your attention on whatever you are listening about to take in all of the information you have! I really like this Ted Talk: How to Speak so that People Will Listen, but whichever one you pick, it should only be about a 10-20min time commitment!
Drink at least 2 Liters of Water: This may seem like a lot, but this is how much we are supposed to be taking in every single day! If you drink a cup an hour, your body will thank you!
Create a New Morning Routine: It used to be said that it takes 21 days to create a habit, but now studies show that it probably takes around 66! So start today! It can be any routine you want or if there’s just something you want to add like washing your face, giving yourself a positive affirmation, or taking time to sit and eat your breakfast instead of taking it on the go in a rush. Your morning sets the tone for the day, so make every day a good day!
Clean up your Social Media Feed: Social Media has more influence on your life than almost anything else. So why not go have a cleanse! Whatever that means to you whether it’s limiting who you’re following (only follow people you know and other people who’s feed you actually enjoy), stop following the people you constantly compare yourself to, or just go clean up some junior high photos you don’t want your potential boss seeing!
Stretch all of your Muscles: It’s so important, whether you’re an athlete, actively working out every day, or a couch potato, it is so important to keep all of your muscles and actively stretched! It will help you now AND in the long run, here’s a video I found that has the best stretches. The Full Body 5 Minute Stretch
Do Something Creative: Whether it’s painting a picture, doodling, doing a DIY project, or simply coloring in an adult coloring book, relaxing your mind and taking time to stimulate the creative part of your brain will quickly help progress your mental health!
Research an Unfamiliar Topic: I already explained how some knowledge is better than no knowledge at all. You don’t have to get a Ph.D. to go research on a topic. Reading Wikipedia definitely won’t do it though, maybe just go read an article or a short journal on Google Scholar so that your get already researched information. You may get to read something in ten minutes that took someone years to research and discover! My favorite topic to learn about is bees!
Cook a Healthy Meal: Now whether that’s a 5-course meal or just some noodles in a pot is up to you. But make something nice for yourself and for your body! I am not a fan of cooking, nor am I any type of chef so here’s a link to Easy and Healthy Things to Cook, some of them take less than 20 minutes to prepare!
Practice Meditation: I’ve never been one to meditate, but I have loved doing yoga before! Meditation can be anything you want it to be. For me, Meditation is doing my quiet times with God while reading my Devotional for the day. For you, it may mean stretching your muscles and calming down. Or if you’re wanting the classic meditation to clear your mind, definitely get an app from the app store just by looking up “Meditation”
De-Clutter a Room: You can make the call on how long you’d like for this to take and take that basis to decide what room you’d like to declutter! For me, some rooms would take 30mins and others, a few days. But a clean room is so rewarding and it is such a nice feeling to walk into an organized and clean room after it had recently been so cluttered.
Practice Yoga: So I mentioned Yoga in the meditation section, but let me tell you the difference. Yoga is physical, meditation is mental. Now you can make both of them physical or mental. But you can also get a Yoga app on your phone just by searching yoga on the app store! Or you can go to a Yoga Studio near you, but that will most likely cost a little more. Yoga is definitely harder than it looks (I speak from a naive first-time yoga-goer) but it is SO rewarding.
Define What Gives You Stress: If you have a Bullet Journal, another journal, or a diary, that is a perfect place to write down what gives you stress. This way you can figure out what you need to take less time on or change how you take your time on that subject. IE. if there is a certain person that is constantly giving you stress, spend less time with that person or limit yourself. Same goes with tasks, if you feel like you are too stressed out, take less time and eliminate the less important tasks! Defining what exactly gives you stress will help you limit and eliminate it from your life.
Watch a Documentary: There are 100s of documentaries on Netflix, and it would be so easy to go take 30 mins or so to watch one and get a little more educated! I also love the show Brain Games on Netflix when I want to watch something educational! We spend so much time watching Netflix and TV everywhere we go, so why not put some of that time to good use and get a little smarter while sitting on the couch?
Groom Yourself: Give yourself a nice bath with a bath bomb, followed by a nice and relaxing shower, then a face mask, then use all of the other body products you own from head to toe! I do this at least once a week and call them “Self Care Fridays” but others call them “Self Care Sunday” I love doing this! If you wanted to splurge, you could go get a mani-pedi or a massage! But this one is so important to your overall well-being! For me, especially, I love to be clean and I fell so much more productive when I am!
Make a Gratitude List: Again, if you have a Bullet Journal, another journal, or a diary, that is a perfect place to write down what you are grateful for. The complete opposite from what gives you stress, writing down your gratitude list will help you figure out what makes you happy and what you need to be spending MORE time on. It can be a person, a place, or a hobby, a thing, and spend more time with, at, or doing precisely that! It will also put things into perspective of how much we all really have!
Clean Out My Email Inbox: This one could be a toughy, currently, I have over 13,000 emails in my inbox, so I completely understand how complicated this one could be, but even just “Marking all as Read” or going to some spam emails and unsubscribing to them will help you declutter you inbox!
Be A Vegetarian For a Day: Just try it for the day in the life of a Vegetarian or a Vegan. I would definitely try Vegetarian, but more than likely, not vegan. Every meal you eat, take a look into how much meat you’re consuming! I didn’t know how much I was consuming until I analyzed a week’s worth of meals and I had had some type of meat at least twice a day! SO for one day just go on a cleanse and try to find another great source of protein like cheese, yogurt, eggs, etc.
Create a New Evening Routine: So I may be repetitive when I say this, but the same as a morning routine, now studies show that it probably takes around 66! So start today! I also think a face mask at night is a great addition to a routine, or just making an initial routine, in general, will help you feel more accomplished at the end of the day!
Try Something New: Now this one is self-explanatory and almost as general as it could get. You can try a new food, try a new app, listen to a new song, try a new restaurant, go skydiving, watch a movie, literally anything. Trying new things and getting out of your normal routine is super healthy for your mind and your body, whatever it is or however little it is, it will still make an impact on your overall well-being!
Go for a Walk: Walk your dog, walk with a friend, or walk in a super safe neighborhood. Just get your blood pumpin’ while relaxing your mind! It’s so relaxing and rewarding to your health too! If your super paranoid about going one a walk outside, like myself, just go to a local gym and walk on a treadmill a little, same effect, just a little less fresh air.
Write Down Who You Need to Forgive: Again if you have a Bullet Journal, another journal, or a diary, that is a perfect place to write down who you need to forgive. Holding grudges can be extremely stressful and horrible for your mental, and sometimes physical health. So just write down a list of relationships you need to mend and things that won’t matter in a couple of years that you can fix now by simply forgiving someone! It will lift a burden off of you as well as the person you are forgiving!
Get Rid of 3 Things You Don’t Use: It can be clothes you’ve outgrown or don’t wear anymore, toys you used to play with, movies you’ve watched, books you’ve read, anything! You can sell them online at Ebay or Poshmark, or even better, you can do good for the world while decluttering your life by donating clothes and other items to local charities (or selling the products and donating that money to charity.
Take a Long Shower or a Bubble Bath: I prefer a long bath rather than a long shower because you can sit down and it wastes less water. But as I already mentioned in the grooming yourself, definitely treat yourself to a bubble bath, or a bath bomb, or both! Just chill in a hot bath and relax and play with the bubbles and listen to some good music!
Write a Love Letter to Yourself: Make a whole letter full of honest, positive affirmations to yourself! Make yourself feel good, boost that self-esteem! You deserve it! You are awesome! You can get pumped while writing it, but keeping it somewhere safe for when you’re feeling really down or defeated is the most important part! Do future you a favor and life yourself up now for when you really need it later!
Have a Social Media Free Day: Now this one is going to be a little hard from me, but if you’re like me and social media is actually necessary for daily life, then you could maybe limit yourself for a day (like only a certain amount of time) or you could limit yourself to how many types of social media you use in your day (like say no Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat only Instagram for the day.) However, you do it will be better than nothing! But hold yourself to it and really see how your day changes (and if you can do absolutely no social media for a day, more power to you!
Drink 5 Cups of Green Tea: Green Tea is extremely useful and is the healthiest drink in the world! It is full of antioxidants and nutrients that have powerful effects on your health throughout your whole body! So just for one day, drink a cup every 2 hours or so and see how your body feels that day!
Say Positive Affirmations to Yourself: It’s one thing to think positive thoughts or to see them written down about yourself, but it’s another to actually hear them out loud, even if it’s from yourself. Take 5 minutes or so to go to a mirror and out loud tell yourself what all you like about you!
Do One Thing You Have Been Putting Off: Whether it’s making a purchase, doing a task, watching a show, doing homework, do it now! It feels so good to check something off of your to-do list and to not have that cloud over your head of things you need to do! So “Just Do It” in the Words of Shia Labeouf.
Try a New Physical Exercise: If you’re a gym rat or if you’re a couch potato, you can always find a new routine or just one exercise to give your body a change up! You can just look up Physical Exercises in a certain area of your body on Google or you can just find a workout app on your phone and try one of those!
Make Short-Term Goals: It’s always important to have goals, and short-term goals are how you get to achieving the long-term goals. Make a list of 10 or more to have. Maybe it’s trying this challenge again, or making some of the exercises a habit! You can determine what that is and what that looks like for you, but write them down and put them somewhere that you’re going to see daily to motivate you!
I hope you enjoy going through this challenge and maybe even drag in a friend to join you too! If you miss a day, who cares! Do two in one day! This is made for you, but try to stick to it as best as you can for the best results! I would love to hear some stories from this one, so feel free to send me a DM on Instagram, comment on this post, or email me! I’d love to hear about your experiences and your results!
Hope you all have a wonderful week and an even better December!