Adding self-care practices into your daily routine can obviously work wonders for your mood and mental health.
You spend most of your days focused on your thoughtsversus your reality.
Thats not ideal since you dont want your own life to pass you by.
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And doing either could change your behavior for the worse too.
You use negative consequences as motivation.
Youre an adult with free will, and you might create other systems to help you get things done.
Even using the promise of a reward as motivation can be a slippery slope.
What to do instead:Make the task itself more pleasant or at least inoffensive.
When you soften the blow of a hard task, itll feel easier to focus on itand finish it.
What actually helps us be more present, Dr. Sanchez says, isenjoyingour presence.
You compare yourself toand evaluate yourself againstothers.
And yet, its only human nature to assess where you stand relative to others.
Were constantly trying to figure out, Am I better?
Does this person have more than me?
But she contends that this also happens often, if more subtly, in our IRL interactions.
For instance, perhaps you stop and think, I just realized Im comparing myself to this person.
Isnt that interesting that Im doing that?
One direct way to do that: Mute the social-media accounts that tend to ignite negative thoughts.
You often put yourself down or self-criticize.
But heres the kicker: This kind of commentary doesnt light a productive fire under your butt either.
Its far more likely to result in you shutting down andnotpursuing your goals, Collings adds.
As Ross puts it: Its paralyzing, its debilitating, and its getting in the way.
Check out our full guide onhow to be kinder to yourself.
You write off an entire day because a bad thing happened.
Little annoyances and setbacks are practically an everyday fact of life.
(Ive even written off a wholeweekafter an unusually rough Tuesday.)
And when you search, youwillfind.
Downplaying annoying events is just toxic positivity, Dr. Sanchez says.
You take full responsibility for other peoples feelings.
But thats different from allowing their concerns and emotions to dictate your actions, Ross says.
So why make a run at do so at the potential expense of your own feelings and values?
So its totally understandable if you do some or even all of them.
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