Set Up a Self-care Routine - As a Christian

The easiest way to take better care of yourself is with healthy habits. Here’s how to set up a self-care routine as a Christian (guilt-free)!

It’s a no-brainer that self-care impacts wellness.

But, when it comes to changing your lifestyle for future health, I think almost everyone would agree that starting is the hardest part.

Starting takes a lot of motivation and a compelling reason ‘why’ to do it. Once you get over THAT mountain, a routine is what’s needed to keep you going after you get going.

But, some people believe self-care is selfish and may even feel guilty when they work on taking better care of themselves.

If you struggle with feeling guilty when you perform self-care, I have a solution for that. Bring the topic of self-care into your time with God (prayer, quiet time).

It puts the focus of self-care on serving God, and less on yourself, which allows the guilt about doing your self-care to melt away.

Here’s why.

As a Christian, it’s important to remember that your self-care not only affects health and wellness, it also impacts your Christian living.

You have a God-given purpose, calling, and passion. Your self-care affects your ability to live out these spiritual disciplines.

Self-care can influence your attention, intentions, and capacity to use your spiritual gifts and serve the Lord.

The ability to impact the Lord’s Kingdom is related to your ability to utilize your God-given purpose, calling, and passion.

That said, self-care is more than just what you eat and whether you’re getting enough exercise.

Depending on where you get your information, there are 5-7 self-care categories.

Consequently, there’s a lot more awareness and effort that needs to go into improving your lifestyle than you often realize.

Efficiency becomes important and that’s another reason why a routine works so well.

How to Set Up a Self-care Routine – As a Christian

Before setting up a routine, you will need to set self-care goals for your God-given calling and purpose. (This post became so large I decided to split it off here. Now, it is the second article in a series. Be sure to go back to this first article after reading this – before you set up your new routine. I promise it’s a quick read!)

Almost every report I read about setting up self-care routines focuses on deciding goals.

Goals and goal setting are in the spotlight right now. There is a little problem with this.

What Has to be Achieved?

Yes, it’s essential to know what goals to meet.

But, if you don’t write down how to achieve these goals, it’s easy to get distracted and even discouraged when barriers get in the way.

Likewise, without that clear set of steps, scope creep is imminent.

I think we can all remember a time that our goals ‘grew’ after we started working on them. Scope creep can make meeting goals an unmanageable process.

Furthermore, when barriers distract us, we may also ‘add’ steps thinking the extra steps are necessary to overcome the obstacles. It’s natural to get overwhelmed and then perhaps quit altogether when this happens.

How do we prevent all of this?

Write a Plan at the Action Level to Set up a Self-care Routine As a Christian

A lot of what I am going to share in the next section comes from an unexpected source.

A business book.

The 12-Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months is an excellent resource for people in business, but it’s also a fabulous tool for setting up a self-care routine! (We’ll get back to our faith-based discussion soon.)

According to authors Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, when you consider the goal as the outcome, you should also realize you must take tactics or actions to help you meet the goal.

Furthermore, these authors believe that goals and tactics must contain certain qualifications. These should be:

Specific and measurable.
Positively stated.
Something that stretches you (realistically)
Time-bound
Visible to others for accountability

Goals

As a nurse, the biggest mistake I see patients make is they set too many goals when they are working on improving their lifestyle.

The 12 Week Year addresses this problem beautifully by recommending just 1-3 goals per 12 weeks.

While this might be a turn off to someone who likes to aim high, remember, if you meet three significant goals every 12 weeks, you will ultimately meet 12 primary self-care goals in a year.

Similarly, Gary Keller, author of The One Thing, is another supporter of working on fewer things at once.

Gary believes there is a way to achieve more with less if the one thing you work on is so valuable that it can eliminate the need for other goals.

When you focus your goals on your God-given calling, you can narrow down your goals with confidence.

Tactics

Ok, let’s talk about tactics next.

Moran and Lennington not only recommend selecting only 1-2 goals, but they also recommend ONLY doing the most important tactics. Spend time only doing tasks that have the biggest impact for you to achieve your goal (or the biggest return on the investment of your time and effort).

Let’s say you have a goal to lower your blood pressure to 110/60 by the end of MM/DD/YY (12 weeks).

Maybe you’ve determined the most valuable tactic for you is to implement meal planning.

Now, list the activities needed to implement meal planning. Again, choose ONLY the activities with the greatest impact on whether you are going to complete the tactic.

An example of best activities might include:

Developing a list of favorite family meals
Learn how to meal prep and meal plan
Plan and prep meals for the week
Add/edit list of favorite family meals

Then, put the activities into a schedule. The image below provides an example of what these tactics look like when they contain the recommended qualifications I’ve outlined above:

How to set up a self-care routine as a Christian_chart

The image represents the following list of activities. When you do the activities as directed, you will meet your goal (remember, only the best tactics have been chosen)!

Make a list of favorite family meals – Week 1
Learn about meal planning and meal prepping (read articles on Pinterest) – Week 1-3
Plan weekly meals – on Sunday of weeks 4-12
Prep weekly meals – on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday of Week 4-12
Update the list of favorite family meals – Week 12

Add 1-3 More Tactics in This Format

A second tactic could be to go for a daily walk. Perhaps you could spend the first day thinking of different walking routes. Then, you could walk a different one each day. Then, after you get started you could add distance as you move through the twelve weeks.

A third tactic may be to follow your health providers’ instructions. You can decide which are the most important 1-2 healthcare provider related activities that best help you reach your goal. It might be taking your blood pressure medication as directed or checking your blood pressure at home and keeping a record of your results.

Repeat the Process for 1-2 More Goals

For the next goal(s), go through the entire process again. Remember, though, the point is to choose just 1-3 goals, and then find the tactics (with activities) that, when done consistently, help you attain those goals.

Routines Bring Efficiency

The benefit of setting up (and following) a routine is that after you learn how to do it, you can SAVE precious time while performing the method.

“When you take time to plan a routine with goals and tactics before you engage with complex tasks, you reduce the overall time required to complete the task by as much as 20 percent.”
Brain Moran & Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year

Likewise, routines also build habits.

Building efficient, healthy habits can save you a lot of time and effort.

Efficiency is Vital for Several Reasons, but When You Set Up a Self-care Routine As a Christian:

Less time spent on self-care gives more time for what many Christians say they struggle with the most: finding time to spend with God (in prayer or reading Scripture).
It helps improve your self-care, which leads to greater wellness.
When you meet the self-care goals you set to utilize your God-given calling and purpose, you impact the Lord’s Kingdom!