Do you feel constantly stressed like the world is on your shoulders and everyone is depending on you? Well, if that’s the case, today’s video is exactly what you need to increase self-care so you feel overflowing instead of constantly burnt-out.

Are you ready? Welcome back to my channel! My name is Denise Walsh and I’ve spent the past 20 years helping people create a life they love. And today’s video is so important, whether you are a busy mama, whether you’re working full-time, whether you just have juggling right, so many hats. Most of us feel overworked, overstressed and like we have no time for anything and that leaves us feeling burnt-out.

And what is burnout? Burnout is basically when you feel so drained energetically that you have nothing left to give. You’re very quick to anger, to frustration, to like anxiety because you feel like you’ve got so much going on and you can’t handle it all and to be honest, you’d probably rather spend all day in bed because life is just too over whelming. If you’ve ever felt like that, I would love for you to hashtag Dream Life below because today, I’m gonna give you three tips for how to break through it.

OK, so, the opposite of burnout is self-care, right? What I want every one of us to do is to implement some sort of self-care routine in our daily calendar so we don’t feel drained every day. So, what is self-care? Self-care is basically putting yourself in your calendar. Doing things that you know will fill you back up. So you can number one, set boundaries; only say things – like saying yes to the things you’ve deemed really important or helping you towards your goal, so you’re setting boundaries with your calendar, you are doing things that bring you joy, that bring you peace consistently enough to actually see a change in your life.

So, the three steps to increasing self-care is, number one; figure out what you love. Like what fills you up. Is it alone time, is it reading books, is it exercise, is it maybe coffee date with friends, is it crocheting or knitting, is it scrapbooking, you know. What is it for you that brings you joy, that brings you peace for you then? Can you leave that experience going “oh!” That’s number one, figure it out.

And so, what I’d love for you to do is to write what’s called a “Joy Review”; what brings you joy. A lot of times it’s when we’re in nature or when we’re on vacation or when we’re golfing or doing things that kind of give us space and time to decompress and relax a minute.

So number one is figure out what you love, okay? So figure out what you love. Write down things that bring you joy. Number two is to put it in your calendar. Now again, this may seem obvious but let’s be real, most of us aren’t doing that. We either feel selfish or we feel like we’re too busy to put ourselves on our calendar. But what I’d like to suggest is that we’re too busy not to, you know what I mean? Like you are gonna do everything else so much better when you are filled up. It’s kind of like the airplane mask, right? They always say put your mask on first before you take care of others.

Instead of giving your leftovers to friends, family, your work, you can fill your – like give them your abundance. You can give them what’s overflowing and then what you give is gonna be so much better. So, put it in your calendar. And again, there’s no right or wrong here, right? It really is figuring out what works for you. Maybe it’s a 20-minute morning routine that gets you in the zone and fills you up, maybe it’s an hour exercise each day, maybe it’s a walk with your spouse or friends at night. Whatever it is, whether it’s 15 minutes or an hour a day, put something in your calendar to do it consistently.

Now, if there’s things for example like it’s not convenient for me to go for a run in the woods every single day because I have to drive there and things. I might put something like that maybe in my calendar once a month or once a quarter, something that I know brings me joy, may be going to the lake or fishing but I can’t quite do it every day, put that in your calendar still. Even if it’s once a month or once a quarter.

And then number three, okay? This is important, stick with it! Stick with it. Your self-care times are non-negotiable. So, if something pops up and it’s easy to say “oh well, I guess I don’t need to go fishing or i guess i don’t need to go for my evening walk or I guess -” you do. You really do. So these times are non-negotiable which means you schedule everything else around it. And part of the balance of that is knowing that your self-worth is worth it, your sanity is worth it, your family needs, your best version of you. And so, it’s important that we set boundaries around our self-care time so that way we actually do it.

So many things are gonna come up, so many things are gonna grab for your attention. But what I know is we put the things that are taking us towards our goal, the most important things in our calendar and then everything else goes around that.

So again, in recap, number one; know what brings you joy, right your joy review. Number two; put them in your calendar every single day. Whether its 15 minutes or an hour and then some might be quarterly. And then number three; make it non-negotiable. Stick with it because I can tell you my friends, when you feel good, it’s gonna radiate, it’s gonna overflow, you’re gonna be able to give way more than you ever could when you’re depleted.

Huh! Doesn’t that make you feel good just to think about doing fun stuff? Now, if you’re sitting here and you’re kind of like “okay, that’s really nice but really I have no time”, here’s a reality check; you do. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, you may need to shift things around, you may have to say no to some extracurricular activities, you may not be able to you know, volunteer or do extra sports or do what – you may have to rearrange things in your life to make this a priority. But I know that when you do, you are gonna feel so much better because of it. So, take a really good look at your calendar and then make sure you put some of the self-care activities in.

Whoo! I hope that this was helpful! If you want more free resources, I have my podcast called Dream Cast which I love and it’s full of informational and inspirational stories and guests and solo episodes. It’s called Dream Cast, it’s on all major podcast players. And then, number two is my Dream Life Action Planner. You guys, this is really powerful for those of you that really want to take control of your calendar and like brain dump everything you’re doing and put things back on your calendar that you know are gonna lift you up and take you where you want to go. Denisewalsh.com/action.

Thank you so much. Comment Dream Life down below and a aha moment that you had and I’ll see you in the next one.