How to Start a Self-Care Practice
Posted: February 6, 2023

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- Fill out a Wellness Wheel. The Wellness Wheel asks you to rate your level of wellness in eight categories - social, emotional, financial, occupational, environmental, intellectual, physical, and spiritual. You can use a blank template like this one to fill in how satisfied you are with each element of your life. If you’re struggling rating your level on your own, try out this quiz for each category of the Wellness Wheel.
- Take a self-care assessment. There are several self-care assessments you can take online, but we particularly like this one by Dr. Cook-Cuttone, who is a master of mindfulness.
- Spend time in reflection. If you like to reflect more intuitively rather than with a quiz or template, consider sitting in meditation, making art, or journaling to reflect on your self-care quality. You can use these journal prompts to get you started.
- Determine your values. You can use a list like this one to pick out some values that resonate with you.
- Consider goals that match your values: Take your list of your values and compare them with your list of your goals. Which goals should stay, and which should go?
- Decide what would be realistic for you … then take it down one notch. For example, if your self-care goal is to learn to cook new meals on a budget to improve your financial self-care, your goal may be to learn one new recipe a week. If you think this is realistic, take it down one notch - learn two recipes a month instead.
- Call on your social support. If you’re somebody who will follow through if you know someone is watching (that’s many of us!), let your social support system know your goals. Who knows - they may even want to go on this journey with you!
- Incorporate self-compassion. If you don’t hit your goal, it’s okay. Putting undue pressure on yourself to do self-care is the opposite of self-care.