Overcome Self-care Barriers with 4 Easy Tips

It’s frustrating when barriers interfere with your self-care efforts. Learn how to overcome self-care barriers with these 4 easy tips!

Doesn’t it seem like a new obstacle appears every time you make a little progress on consistent self-care? Sometimes it feels like a guard is waiting for you to move forward so they can drop another barrier in your path!

That’s not true, of course.

It’s just life!

Life will always present barriers.

But that doesn’t have to stop you from taking better care of yourself.

I promise you can overcome those barriers.

However, you do need a plan.

Need some help finding time to take better care of yourself? Get your FREE copy of the Self-Care Starter Guide HERE!

Overcome Self-care Barriers with 4 Easy Tips.

Admit You’re Not Alone

One of the most damaging beliefs we tend to have on our journey to start taking better care of ourselves is that we live in a silo.

But you’re not on this journey alone!

At the very least, you’re probably on your self-care journey with your spouse and children.

You may also have your friends, parents, co-workers, church family, and neighbors on your journey!

What does this mean?

It means you can’t look at your calendar in isolation. You can’t just consider your to-do list. You have to consider others, too!

Just because you want to take better care of yourself doesn’t mean you can ignore all your responsibilities to your ‘family.’

Therefore, to overcome (and hopefully prevent) the barriers that interfere with self-care, anticipate what will and could happen.

So, consider looking at everything on your group’s calendar.

Be sure to include chaperoning duties, running errands, and taking people (& pets!) to appointments and events.

Consider doing this monthly – things change monthly or season to season.

Then, create a fluid emergency tactic or plan.

• For example, you may need to schedule a preferred and a backup time to exercise.
• Or maybe have a preferred type of exercise and a backup activity.
• Plan a preferred menu for that mealtime and a backup meal plan or list for that period.

Creating emergency or backup plans will give you some flexibility but still allow you to follow your self-care plan, albeit in a slightly different way.

Now that you know this, as new barriers arise, consider whether it might be something you’ll see again.

If so, consider creating a backup plan.

Give yourself grace!

At the same time, remember that it’s impossible to consider every type of barrier.

But after seeing it at least twice, you should put a backup plan into place!

If you think this sounds silly, it’s not.

Other people’s schedules can quickly become air-tight excuses if you let them, especially if you serve or care for others.

You’ll never overcome your self-care hurdles if you use other people’s needs or schedules as an excuse not to follow yours.

Create an Emergency Plan to Overcome Self-care Barriers

It’s a tremendous help to build emergency strategies when you face a new or even a familiar barrier.

But, honestly, the most effective way to build an emergency plan is to map out your day and try to see problems before they happen.

This might sound impossible, but it’s not.

I’ve got an effective solution, but it’s a bit unusual. Follow and trust the process.

• Write down everything you do in a day.
• Then, think about all the additional things you’ve seen ‘pop up’ that have interfered with your self-care.
• To do this effectively, list everything you have to do, places to be, or events to attend. Don’t forget to include your family’s items too.
• Turn a sheet of paper landscape and list these things across the top of the page. If you have a lot, you can tape a few pages together.
• Be sure to leave space between each item.

These spaces are essential because these ‘invisible’ places are common spots where barriers occur.

Most of us can accomplish the task or do whatever we need to do once we get to where we need to be. It’s getting there that’s hard. And, often, turmoil happens in the spaces. So let’s work there for a minute.

• Mindset is everything. When you meet barriers between your tasks, consider them as transition barriers.
• Make barriers visible. Think about your transition barriers. Make a list for each transition (write the barriers for every space, even if you write the same type of obstacle in multiple places).
• Look for patterns. Identify which barriers happen most often? Rank the barriers by frequency for each space.
• Finally, for the most frequent barriers, ask yourself if anything can be done to prevent it (sometimes awareness is all that is needed), and if not, create a backup plan.

Eventually, I think you’ll see you’ve had more ‘unseen’ barriers come up than you thought. Making them more visible is the key to overcoming them more quickly!

Thankfully, when you look at them like this, you will start to expect them, and then you can create backup plans and still take good care of yourself!

Adjust Your Attitude

This one is short but powerful.

Barriers are just barriers.

They’re not permanent roadblocks. They CAN be overcome!

• Change your mindset to expect barriers
• Accept barriers as part of the self-care journey
• Plan for them along the way

Doing so will lessen the feelings of frustration when they come up.

Changing your mindset will help you stop viewing the barrier as a failure. It’s only something to add to your emergency plan, which will always be present and changing.

Set Up Helpful Accountability Measures

We all need a little encouragement to keep us going.

That’s helpful. But accountability helps you stay on track and keep yourself honest. Accountability keeps you from making and then accepting excuses as truth.

Track your results. It’s easy to paint rosy pictures without good data. But you have another story if you start tracking how often you follow through with the tactics you said you would.

One of my favorite books, The 12-Week Year, does a fantastic job of showing how to track your efforts. Touted as a business book, it’s also a great book to use when improving your self-care or changing your lifestyle.

Authors Moran and Lennington describe the essential to-dos or tactics to reaching your goal. These tactics become your action plan. You’ll meet your goal if you complete these tasks as you set up in your program.

By default, tactics are the most important things to do to meet your goal.

So, when you create your emergency plan, you are essentially putting together a plan to ensure these critical tasks get done.

If you’ve done the tactics, you’ve had a great week. If you have great weeks consistently, you’ll meet your goals!

When you meet your goals, you need to reward yourself!

BONUS TIP: Use Appropriate Rewards to Overcome Self-care Barriers

Finally, reward yourself when you break through your self-care barriers and meet your goals.

But use appropriate rewards!

For example, if you’re abstaining from sugar, soda, or desserts, DO NOT reward yourself with these things! You’re setting yourself up to get stuck in a never-ending cycle of self-sabotage.

Instead, reward yourself with a tangible, meaningful reward that will encourage you to keep doing what you are doing because you see how it is making a difference in your health and wellness.

Examples might include new clothes, spending time with friends or family doing something fun, or upgrading your exercise equipment. This list can be endless, but the point is that it’s meaningful to you on your health journey.

In conclusion, your self-care is not a short-term voyage.

It’s a lifelong commitment.

When you implement these simple strategies, you, too, will find you CAN overcome self-care barriers with 4 easy tips!

Don’t forget your FREE Self-Care Starter Guide! Get it HERE.

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This post was originally published on February 27, 2020.