goal – Luminous Leanings

7 Simple Steps to Create Your Self-Care Plan

As a self-care & self-compassion coach, I work with clients to develop personalized plans for their self-care rituals & routines! I believe self-care is the foundation for self-compassion. With a routine & structure in place, it’s much easier to find the time to drop into that space of presence & gratitude where true self-love can blossom.

Self-care is near and dear to my heart, and my understanding of it radically evolved when I read the book Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristen Neff. She writes:

When we soothe our own pain, we are tapping into the mammalian care-giving system. And one important way the care-giving system works is by triggering the release of oxytocin. Research indicates that increased levels of oxytocin strongly increase feelings of trust, calm, safety, generosity and connectedness and facilitates the ability to feel warmth and compassion for ourselves. Oxytocin is released in a variety of social situations, including when a mother breastfeeds her child, when parents interact with their young children or when someone gives or receives a soft, tender caress. Because thoughts and emotions have the same effect on our bodies whether they’re directed to ourselves or to others, this research suggests that self-compassion may be a powerful trigger for the release of oxytocin (source).

If you think you don’t have time for self-care, this post is for you! I’m here to show you how simple it can really be. You don’t have to self-care by yourself – I’m here to show you the way! Grab a blank sheet of paper or your journal and a pen, and cozy up in a comfortable, undisturbed spot. Follow these 7 simple steps to create your own self-care plan, & start feeling the self-love in no time!

1. Evaluate Your Current Level of Self-Care

Before you begin creating your plan, it’s important to consider your baseline for self-care. If it helps, you can close your eyes and ask yourself the following questions:

How accessible is self-care for me right now?
When was the last time I did something to care for myself?
How does it feel to care about my own well-being?

Take your time as you consider this. It is not easy work! From these questions, you can assess your current level of self-care. Write it down on a scale of 1-10. Really dig into it, and get curious about your rating.

2. Envision Your Self-Care Goals, Set Your Intention & Manifest

This step has 3 parts. The first is to envision your self-care goals. Perhaps you already know you’d like to work out 3 times a week or start a daily journaling practice. Step two is to write it down & get super specific. This is a visioning exercise, so it doesn’t need to be in the form of goals yet. Think of them as hopes & dreams. Create a Pinterest board for inspiration or a literal vision board collage, if that feels right.

Thirdly, a manifestation exercise can help you draw these dreams into your reality. Sit or lie down comfortably with your eyes closed, and simply daydream in detail about you caring for yourself in these ways. What does the room look like? What props do you have around you? What activities are you doing? What are you saying to yourself? What is your general attitude, thoughts & emotions toward self-care? How does it affect your entire life? When you come out of the visualization, edit your written intention as necessary based on what you saw and learned.

3. Set SMART Goals

A SMART goal is a goal that is given the tools to come true! SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Write SMART down the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Across the top of the paper, create self-care categories based on your intentions. For example, if you intend to wake feeling well-rested, write “Sleep” for one of your categories. My categories include sleep, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, cooking, and outdoor time.

Now, create a goal for each category that is SMART! For Sleep, I could write: I will get at least 8 hours of sleep every night of the week. Check it against the SMART criteria:

S – This goal is specific because it specifies how much sleep I plan to get.

M – I can measure this goal by checking off whether or not I got 8 hours.

A – This is definitely attainable, as it won’t wreck my current routine and habits.

R – Getting 8 hours of sleep each night is relevant for me, as I know it’s the minimum I need to flourish and it fits into my broader self-care goals of being healthy and vibrant.

T – This is a time-bound goal, as it mentions I plan to get 8 hours of sleep each night.

Continue writing your SMART goals for each of your remaining categories. Some categories may have more than one SMART goal – that’s perfectly fine!

4. Break Them Down Into Habits

Now take the SMART goal and make it a habit. For example, if my SMART goal was to cook healthy, affordable meals 4 times per week, habits would need to include: creating a meal plan and shopping list, going to the grocery on Sundays, prepping the ingredients on Sunday night, and scheduling in the time needed to cook 4 nights per week after work. A goal can be broken down into many habits. Make sure you think through all of its angles before moving on to the next one.

5. Acknowledge Your Barriers & Brainstorm Solutions

Taking a look at these habits across all your goals, envision adapting your lifestyle to hold them. Write down any red flags that come up, and sticky places where you can see things going the most poorly or being the most difficult to adopt. Draw a vertical line and write at the top “Solutions.” How can you solve for each of these barriers? If you’re concerned you won’t be able to sit in meditation for 20 minutes each day because your kids are constantly screaming for you, rework your day so you can meditate before they wake up or after they go to bed, or perhaps find an environment where you can guarantee you won’t be disturbed. If you write down many possible solutions, circle the one you’re going to try out first. If that ends up not working, move on to another one and try that! This is an exercise in figuring out what works best for you.

6. Set Up Accountability Systems

Accountability truly is the key for habit maintenance. Studies show folks are 65 percent more likely to meet a goal after committing to another person. The chance of success then increases to 95 percent when they build in ongoing meetings with their partners to check in on their progress (source). Whoa! That’s nearly guaranteed success.

For each habit or goal, write down one accountability measure you will put in place to make sure you stick to it – at least for the first 66 days. They say it takes that long to really form a habit (source). Accountability can mean finding a buddy, setting a phone alarm, or even signing up for one of these apps that sets consequences (like paying money to your most hated causes) for failing to meet your goals!

If I wanted to work out 3 times per week, I might ask my best friend to text me every Saturday night to ask me how many times I had exercised that week. I could suggest she set an alarm on her phone to remind her, and ask if I can reciprocate with anything she wanted to be held accountable for. Another great accountability measure is to announce a 30-day challenge you are starting on social media. The pressure of posting a picture of yourself meditating every day for 30 days will help you find the time and willpower to meet your goals!

You could also set your alarm for your bedtime each night and wake up time each morning, or write in your schedule the allotted time to run the errand, leave for the spin class, make it happen! Remember, write down at least one accountability measure for each goal or habit.

7. Journal & Check-In Along the Way

Lastly, don’t forget to journal and check in with yourself along the way! I recommend setting aside 10 minutes on Sundays (or whenever you do your weekly planning) to assess your progress. Stick to it for the first couple of months, and then see if you want to switch anything up. Reconnect with your intentions and the why behind your desire to self-care. This is a life-long journey! Sometimes the care feels robotic (mine did this morning!), and other times we are chomping at the bit to set aside this sacred time. Notice how easy or difficult it is and how it changes, and the reasons for it. You could design your own self-care tracker and leave space for journaling your emotions around the practices, what you are learning about yourself, and how you might like to adjust them in the future.

Intentions are made up of pure, beautiful manifesting powerful energy to make our lives more vibrant and fulfilled. Self-care intentions are our intuitive sense of how we need to better care for ourselves in order to fulfill our life’s purpose. Goals and habits are where the rubber meets the road. They’re not always a ton of fun to set, implement and stick to, but without them our intentions are pretty meaningless. In time, these accountability measures and the discomfort that comes with setting a new goal will fade to the background and all that will remain is the automatic and desirous joy that comes with your self-care practice. When my morning yoga and meditation routine transitioned from a to-do item to check off my list to a sacred hour that I fight off all competitive time-stealers from, I knew it had morphed from a habit into a practice.

Be sure to check out my posts on creating a bedtime routine, morning ritual, and a Sunday checklist for your week!

I hope these 7 simple steps help you create your own self-care plan! I’d love to hear how it goes in the comments below. Be well and take gentle self-care!

My Sunday Checklist & Meal Planning Ritual

Summer is barely beginning to tip over the edge of fullness into the waning season of autumn here in the Southwest U.S. My ancestral body is getting excited for warm soups, fall hikes, and cozying up with some bourbon by the fire with the husband and cat.

The in-between seasons are a great time for setting intentions, especially around systems and rituals that help us meet and maintain our goals. A few months ago, I refined my Sunday rituals that prepare me for the week ahead. It’s been such a game changer for me that I wanted to share them with you! (Read to the end to get access to my free weekly meal planner!)

Step 1: Self-Care Ceremony

My Sunday ritual has three parts. To close the week out on Saturday nights, I often like to take a bath or do a candlelit restorative yoga session at home. To incorporate self-care into my Sunday week opener, I like to add a little ceremony – perhaps a walk outside, lighting a candle before I begin, or a manifesting meditation. I encourage you to find anything that feels good to you in the moment – any ritual that centers you for the logistical planning that comes next. It is profound to set our intentions and really envision the week we want to have, to get into that embodied state before we start using our brains.

Step 2: Checklist

Who doesn’t love a good checklist? There’s something so comforting and finite about seeing your tasks laid out in black and white, and going through them one-by-one. My Sunday Checklist is a list of the things I need to schedule into my calendar for the week ahead, and it lives in a Google doc. I recommend taking out a note and listing all the things you need to carve time out for on a weekly basis. If it’s helpful, you can add the estimated or preferable number of hours you will spend each week, as a goal to meet. You can even rank them in order of priority so you know what needs to get scheduled first, second, and so on. To give you an idea, my Sunday Checklist looks something like this:

Schedule in work. One of my jobs is in the service industry (I beertend at a local brewery), so I need to make sure I have my schedule up to date each week, as it is always changing!

Check on bills due. I keep all my due dates in my calendar, and I like to keep track of these at the start of the week so I know how much will be coming out of my account when.

Schedule in yoga & self-care. You know me – self-care has to be prioritized for my week! I like to actually put my yoga and other self-care ideas on the calendar, so I’m more likely to follow through.

Schedule in workouts. Exercise doesn’t always feel like self-care to me, so I have to remind myself to schedule it in to meet my goals. Whether it’s a hike I’ve committed to with a friend or a solo Zumba class, I try to make sure I’m working out at least 3 times a week.

Schedule in social commitments. I add in any commitments I’ve made to friends or think about what plans I want to make for the upcoming week. This usually requires some coordination with my hubby, since we both work odd brewery hours.

Schedule in dates with Jon & solo dates. Spending time with my husband is so important. The less time we have together, the more we savor it and try to be intentional about it. Even if it’s as simple as cooking at home together and having a night where we don’t turn the TV on, we count it as a date. Likewise, if there’s something I’ve been wanting to try on my own, like a new hiking trail or a creative project to nourish my soul, I’ll schedule in that solo date next.

Schedule in classes and homework. I’m completing my life coaching class, which requires homework and practice sessions in addition the 2 hour class each week. I also include any other educational ventures here, like if I signed up for a free webinar or need to spend time studying for a skill I want to independently cultivate.

Schedule in work for my business. I keep a pretty long to-do list in my business, from writing blogs to recording guided meditations, to client outreach. I try to keep a balance of time dedicated to that each week, and schedule it accordingly.

Schedule in meal planning, grocery & prep, cooking times. This one took me a while to start scheduling in on my calendar! Even though cooking was important to me, it’s like I thought it would just happen naturally. Ha! It only took me 11 years of living on my own to realize… I need a pretty detailed plan to make sure it does happen. Now I schedule in time to make my grocery list (the next stage of my Sunday ritual), go to the grocery, prep my ingredients, and actually cook! Looking at the calendar helps, because I know if we have dinner plans on Wednesday, I don’t need to cook. Or if my ingredients list includes something more perishable (e.g. fish or leafy greens), I’ll try to make those recipes earlier in the week. More on this below…

Schedule in errands & chores for the week. It feels good to know that laundry day is every other Thursday, and Sunday is my day for chores and errands. But in case anything shifts (e.g. I make plans for Sunday brunch), I like to move the event on my calendar to it’s new time.

Scheduling everything into my google calendar each week might seem obsessive or extreme, but it truly helps me see my week at a glance and actually feel more grounded. I don’t hold myself to it as a rigid structure – in fact, things are constantly shifting and changing. But having the items on my agenda helps ensure things don’t get dropped altogether, rather, they just shift to their new home.

My relationship to time has changed for the better this year. I have come to accept what a week is capable of, and the potential in a single day. After all, we all have the same 24 hours! I’ve noticed that what I prioritize, I will channel my energy and time into. And if I can cultivate patience, I will see the fruits of the seeds I’m planting over time. As a self-diagnosed impatient person, I assure you this is no easy task.

Step 3: Meal Planning

After I’ve completed scheduling my weekly priorities, I move on to meal planning for the week. When I take the time to ground and get curious about what my body needs nutritionally and what my soul needs in terms of flavors and experiences, this process goes much more smoothly. After all, you can infuse spirituality, self-care and body awareness into everything! When our planning is done this way, that intention is held and manifested in the outcomes.

I usually jot this down in an evernote that syncs to my phone, but I cre ate d this beautiful downloadable freebie for you to plan your meals here – check it out!

Here are my 10 steps to meal planning. Make this process your own!

1. Note the days this week you can/want to cook. For many people, setting an intention about how many nights each week they’d like to cook can be a nice goal to have in mind. For me, I try to cook 3 or 4 times a week. I’ll often make big batches so we can have leftovers for lunches or other nights.

2. Reflect on & research some recipes you might want to make this week. Perhaps you need to keep it really simple this week with 30-minute meals you know like the back of your hand. Or maybe there’s a night here and there for you to really spend time in the kitchen and try something completely new. Try to keep a balance between what you need to eat & what you have to give, in terms of time and energy.

3. Pop the meals you’ll have each day into the chart I made for you here. For breakfasts, sometimes I just note yogurt and fruit, if it really is that simple. I even get intentional about snacking, and try to brainstorm ideas I can list in this space each day.

4. Take note of the recipe locations for each as well, often these are hyperlinks I save so I can easily reference when the time comes to get cookin’!

5. Pull the ingredients from each recipe and list them on your grocery list. Of course, don’t include the ones you already have at home. I try to substitute the same ingredients across the board, where possible, to ensure we’re not wasting anything or over-spending. For example, I’ll try to make recipes that week that utilize the same herbs, like cilantro, or the same protein, like the bag of frozen shrimp. This is a time for you to use your intuition and what you have on hand, not to stick to the recipe 100%.

6. Combine all the other items you need from the grocery here. I keep a note going on my phone called Groceries + the date which I can easily reference each time I realize we’ve run out of something again. My current list reads hilariously – just olive oil, vodka, and butter. 🙂

7. Split the ingredients out by category – this will make it endlessly easier for you while at the grocery. I’ve split my tracker here into produce, protein, dairy, dry goods, frozen, household, and personal care categories.

8. Schedule what you plan to make and when in your calendar, and estimate how long they’ll take.

9. Go to the grocery! Adjust your plan accordingly if they don’t have the ingredients you need.

10. If you have time, prep ingredients ahead of time. This doesn’t always happen, but I like to prep ingredients for the next few days’ meals as soon as I get home from the grocery. I really like to prep snacks ahead of time as well – chopping fresh veggies and sticking them in mason jars makes reaching for healthy snacks so convenient!

And there you have it – a week of intentional, nourishing, and prepped meals ready to go, ready to support you on another week of caring for yourself. Is there anything better than coming home from a hard day’s work to prepped ingredients and a meal plan, with time carved out to spend in the kitchen? It makes my heart so happy, helps me save money and definitely keeps me eating healthy!

That’s my 3-part Sunday Ritual, Dear Ones. I hope it serves you as you begin to craft your own. Remember to be flexible. Weeks never go exactly according to plan! Part of caring for ourselves is allowing for wiggle room and resilience and growth through life’s curveballs.

Let me know how your Sunday ritual goes in the comments below:

What was your self-care ceremony like?

Did checking things off the list and scheduling them into your calendar make you feel nurtured and taken care of?

I’d love to hear!