Hey guys! I am here with the promised second post of the weekend. Excited to be getting back on track and to continue discussing self-care for writers. Today’s post and next week’s post will be on maintenance. So, without further ado…
Care for Writers: Maintenance Part 1
For today’s post I want to talk a little bit about the third part of the definition of care which is maintenance. I think this is the part of self-care when it comes to writers that you are either very very good or very very bad at and there isn’t really a lot of middle ground. So, I’m hoping to address this in two parts. This post will be more about the maintenance of tangible health while next week will be a focus on intangible health.
When working on these posts I had a hard time deciding what maintenance really was because I wasn’t sure I was really that good at it. And I thought to myself, “Isn’t maintenance just self-care not part of self-care?” But as I considered the full definition of care, I realized that maintenance wasn’t really just the act of care but the act of maintaining the care you have already established in the first two parts of the definition. So today I wasn’t to walk about maintenance in physical and financial health.
Financial Health
Writers don’t always make the best money. And as such a lot of writers can get very stressed out and panicked about their own finances. I cannot presume on the actual financial situations of all writers as everyone is different. Some write as their only job, some write as a hobby, some write and have a well-paying full-time job. So, since I can’t know specifics most of these suggestions will also just be suggestions on ways to help to care for yourself financially.
Budgeting everything can really help with personal financial health which can lead to better self-care. When I first began budgeting, I only really considered the necessary things like food, rent, utilities, and that sort of stuff. Budgeting should also include everything that you would like to spend money on as well as things you are saving up for or will need to save up for such as biannual insurance, books you want to buy when they release, that little bit of entertainment you want to do each week (theater, movies, a new book), anything that you would need to spend money on you should budget. This should help to reduce stress and lead to more opportunities for better self-care.
Also including self-care in your budget can often help to reduce and maintain better financial health. Such as budgeting an extra few dollars to save or spend each month on something you think would help with your self-care. For me it’s a new book I’m looking forward to or time and money to buy the hair care products I want. These are the types of things that people can do to increase their financial health and also their self-care.
Physical Health
Maintaining physical health can be hard and I’ve already discussed it quite a bit in the first health post in this series. So here I want to discuss some of the things you can do to maintain physical health since maintenance is the next part of the definition of care. Developing a healthy routine is what I discussed before but maintaining that routine can be a lot of work.
Take time to evaluate how your routine is working or what you might want to add or take out of it. Some people do this on a daily basis, some on a weekly, and some on a monthly. However frequently you choose to do it, actually pick something consistent and put it on your calendar. That is your time to be frank with yourself – does this new diet make me feel better or worse? Does this form of exercise sit well with me? Is there a food I’m eating I need to cut out or a food I’m not eating that I need to add in. Taking time to consider these things and ask yourself these questions is the first step in maintaining better physical health.
That’s all I have for today’s post on self-care for writers. I hope that this was understandable. I personally find that maintaining my financial health is a bit harder than maintaining my physical health, but I have friends who have it the other way around. However, both are important to maintaining good self-care.
Next week’s post will be on the second half of maintenance before we move onto the final part of the definition of care in the week after next. I hope that you enjoyed this post. Is there anything about maintaining financial or physical health that I didn’t include that you’ve found useful? Comment below! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the links below. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!