When it comes to practicing self-care, consistency is the key you need to see positive results. But like other activities, you may want to upgrade your knowledge and acts of self-love—dream big and live more!
If you think you’re ready to bring your self-care to a notch, then these ideas are perfect for you:
1. Participate in Challenges
Most likely, for the past year or so, you’ve been doing self-love without any help or support. That’s well and good. In fact, you deserve a pat on the back because you’re brave enough to tackle that yourself.
However, since we’re on the subject of self-care upgrade, why don’t you start participating in challenges? There are tons to choose from out there. For example, if you want to eat more healthily, perhaps shift to veganism or a plant-based diet, you can begin the year by participating in the Veganuary Challenge.
If you want to increase your movements, you’ll find dozens of virtual fitness challenges. With conqueror.events, for example, you can climb Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro, swim the English Channel or hike the Inca Trail or the Camino de Santiago.
In these events, you can see a visual guide of your path and accomplish the goals by actually walking around the neighborhood, swimming in the public pool, or biking in the park—your choice. In the end, when you have completed the challenges, you will receive an award, an amazing remembrance for your feat.
2. Take Up Courses
The things you’ve learned about self-care or self-love may have come from your hours of reading, watching YouTube videos, and following experts on social media. Perhaps you’ve also joined forums and support groups in case you need immediate answers to your questions.
But there’s a good chance that the information you receive is disjointed, unclear, or even misleading. You’ve probably even committed many mistakes along the way.
If you’re dead serious about learning more about taking care of yourself, now is a good time to take up professional courses. There are beauty schools when your passion is skincare and nutrition and cooking classes if you want to learn more about food. You can get certifications for various types of workouts like Zumba or Pilates.
Besides the knowledge you get from the expert, taking up classes will allow you to transform your passion into a business or profession. Finding your ikigai or soul purpose can further enrich your life, giving it more meaning.
3. Share Your Experience with Others
Most likely, you’ve succeeded in your self-care because you get help and support from others. You may have virtual friends cheering you on, doctors who provide you with medical soundness, and others who were in the same position as you but are now sharing what they knew with others.
Now that you’ve benefited from all these, perhaps it’s also time that you pay it forward. Like those before you and the people around you, you can become somebody else’s fitness buddy, motivational speaker, source of inspiration, and even mentor.
You can pursue many ways on how to share your knowledge. You can start a blog or create a video channel, as well as write a book or speak in webinars. If you are shy or feel uncomfortable with huge crowds, you can always begin with a friend or a family member you think can benefit from your experience.
4. Elevate Your Habits
Why do many people fall off the wagon after being consistent for some time? One reason is boredom. Even though humans are creatures of habits—we thrive on routine—doing the same thing over and over can lead to monotony in the mind. We will eventually crave adventure or newness, and sometimes we may end up preferring the older days.
To prevent that, it’s time to elevate your habits. If you are working out three times a week, you may want to add one day more. If your workouts are mainly cardio, perhaps you can now integrate 30 minutes of strength or resistance training. You may even change your fitness regimen every day!
If you’ve been sleeping for five hours, probably this time, you can add 30 minutes to an hour. You may want to stretch or do relaxation yoga before going to sleep. If you’ve been meditating for 10 minutes, you can increase that to 15 minutes and see how it changes your state of mind.
For everything that you did to improve yourself, you deserve all the applause. But maybe it will help you love yourself more when you make new goals and bring your idea of self-care to a whole new level.