Take Care

Over the past couple of weeks, I feel like I’ve talked less about travel and more about self-care. Self-care really is important and I have a routine that I practice otherwise I’d go mad. I took a mental health break over the weekend and it was amazing. I did absolutely nothing. Okay, maybe that wasn’t supposed to be the plan. Remember, doing things that are meaningful is required for a good self-care plan. So let’s just say that I did an hour each day at the gym and meditated for 20 mins. There! Sense of well-being restored! I did get some much-needed rest and sleep and did absolutely no work – which is a wonderful thing!

I wanted to follow-up to last week’s post that addressed self-care with a great self-care tool that I was sent a while ago. It’s a really good self-care assessment tool that comes from Saakvitne, Pearlman & Staff of TSI/CAAP. There are a ton of variations of this assessment floating about online. I’m not sure who put together this particular one with the fancy background but I like it. The assessment itself is broken into categories such as physical, psychological, emotional, and relationship and asks you to score items related to each category on a scale of 1-to-5 with 5 being an activity you do most often and 1 being something you never even considered. You can find items like taking a break during the work day (covered), spending time in nature, and making time to see friends – ones we can depend on. Using the tool and scoring yourself in each area, you can get a sense of what areas you can improve upon based on the score. Or you can continue to cultivate the things you enjoy and do more often, it’s completely up to you. Challenge yourself and attempt to re-assess yourself in 6 months or so and see if you beat your initial score. Have fun with it!

To download a copy of the assessment, click here! Share this tool with other travelers!