Develop Your Self-Care Plan 

To truly commit to self-care, it’s imperative to create a system you can fall back on when life gets a bit too crazy. Think about your lifestyle and your needs. What makes you feel happy and refills your cup and what taps you out completely. Take the time to jot those down as you begin your plan towards happiness. 

Outline your self care needs

• Identify your ‘unhappy’ tasks, moments etc.
• Outline systematic ways to cope or eliminate those from your life. Limit uncomfortable calls with toxic friends, family or just customer service.
• Trade or barter with anyone who lives with you. Can you separate tasks so they deal with those that aren’t your favorite ones and can you do that for them. It becomes a win-win.
• Reward yourself with Self Care. This will reduce your ‘unhappy’ cup and fill your happy cup. Schedule this for Wednesdays to feel the best. 
• Understand as life happens, systems may need to be revisited

Identify tasks and ask yourself the right questions

When are you at your least happy? Sometimes it’s identifying that and imagining how to remove that aspect from your life. For instance, you hate cleaning. Can you afford a cleaning person? If not, what are other ways to manage that task? Perhaps it means being tidy immediately after the mess, perhaps it’s coming to terms with the mess and accepting that tidiness can wait and will not affect you. It is all up to you.

Once you identify your stressors, it’s a little easier to chip away at them. Talk with others to see how they manage those tasks to spark some ideas. Make a list of possible ways to skirt around them or simply to remove them from your list. For instance, I hate pumping gas. I don’t mind driving so much but because I hate pumping gas, I bought a car that requires a refill once a month. That was my compromise. I also bike and walk more often to address items instead of jumping in the car. 

Hate laundry? Well can you bundle items? Are you a staunch believer in whites must only be washed with whites? Does your partner or roommate like to do laundry? Perhaps offering a trade would work. If you like cleaning dishes, clean dishes and swap out the laundry commitment. There are a few ways to systemically remove item from your list so you can focus on your self care. 

Reward yourself with Self-Care

Another tactic I used was earning my self care. If there were too many tasks that depleted my happiness cup, I found a self care ritual to compensate for it. If I needed to work with contractors or address customer service issues, I’d schedule a reward like a mani/pedi at the end of the day. Mentally the idea that I’d be pampered helped me contend with the true frustration I felt from these responsibilities.