“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”

? Rumi

It’s not the face, but the expressions you make. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not exactly how you look in that body, but the things you do with it. You are incredible! Give yourself a chance to be your best, by caring for yourself accordingly.

Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go in life is achievable, and you are worth the effort.

Self-care, as Marc and I define it to our course students, includes any intentional actions you take to care for your physical, mental and emotional health. Maintaining a healthy self-care routine is a challenge for many of us, and it can be especially challenging when life gets busy.

There are three physical-health-related aspects of self-care that get talked about a lot:

Eating right

Sleeping well

Exercising regularly

And then there are many intricate mental and emotional aspects of self-care that we often forget about. This is the aspect of self-care I want to touch upon in this post. Below you will find 18 handpicked quotes from our book and blog archive that I often reference for my own mental and emotional self-care. I hope you find them as helpful as I do…

It’s not what you say to everybody else that determines your life – it’s what you whisper to yourself every day that has the greatest power. Don’t look for others to give you permission to be yourself. You don’t need anyone’s validation to be “good enough” or to have a great day. The best time to be extra kind to yourself is when you don’t feel like it. Because that’s when doing so can make the biggest difference. Be your own experiment. Be your own work of art. Be a work in progress. And be OK with it. Let people around you see the real, imperfect, quirky, weird, beautiful, magical person YOU are. That is enough. You can’t base your ideas of success and happiness on other people’s opinions and expectations. Spend a lot more time with those who make you smile and a lot less time with those who you feel pressured to constantly impress. (And remember, you can be kind to people without choosing to be around them all the time.) Our greatest defense against stress is the ability to choose one thought over another. Remember this. If you look for reasons to be angry and upset, you’ll find plenty of them. Look instead for reasons to be positive, and see them everywhere. One of the most peaceful mindsets ever begins the moment you finally find the courage to let go of what you can’t change. (Read The Power of Now.) There’s no use going back over yesterday and what you did or didn’t do, because you were a different person then. Unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you accept that it’s over, you can’t move forward. Most people make themselves unhappy simply by finding it impossible to accept life just as it is presenting itself right now. Don’t be one of them. You don’t know what the future will bring… So your best strategy for living is to make the best and most positive use of the present. When you discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy – something that truly matters to you – care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. And if you find that you don’t have enough time for what matters, stop doing things that don’t. The quality of your life in the long run directly depends upon how you set and respect your priorities today. And it’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. Whenever the grass looks greener on the other side, stop staring, stop comparing, stop complaining, and start watering the grass you’re standing on. Anyone can hide from problems and suffer. Facing up to things, and working through them gradually – that’s what makes you stronger and happier in the end. Don’t break your back. You can’t lift a thousand pounds all at once. Yet you can easily lift one pound a thousand times. Tiny, repeated efforts will get you there. (Marc and I discuss this further in the “Goals & Success” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.) Sometimes we need to distance ourselves to see things clearly. And sometimes the most important thing we do in a whole day is the short rest we take between two deep breaths.

Your turn…

With self-care on your mind, I challenge you to join me, and complete this short positive to-do list by tomorrow night:

Go for a long walk.

Indulge in a great conversation.

Do something you love for an hour.

Count your blessings.

Pay close attention to the moment (as often as you can remember to).

Let go… and just be and breathe (as often as you need to).

And please leave a comment below and let me know what your #1 self-care priority is right now. What do you need to start doing for your own well-being?

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Photo by: Regina Leah