Why does nobody talk about how hard it is to practice self-care?!

How am I meant to become the girl who drinks enough water, eats healthy, exercises, practices gratitude, practices mindfulness, has a great skincare routine and sleeps at least 7 hours a night when I don’t even have the energy to brush my teeth?

I entered January 2023 with the best intentions. I hate to be THAT person, but I definitely jumped on the ‘new year, new me!’ bandwagon, and I felt really good about it.

As someone who has struggled with my mental health since my teens, I have done a lot of work on building up a toolkit of coping strategies, yet towards the end of 2022 I noticed how many bad habits I was still leaning on after a stressful day: the junk food, the lack of hydration, the one too many glasses of rosé on a Friday night.

I made a list of the habits I wanted to make a part of my daily routine, and a couple of weeks into January I asked myself: WHY have I not been doing these things all along?

*My habits list, intended to turn me into the vision of health*

As a mental health advocate, I talk all the time about the importance of self-care, but at times I have failed to practice what I preach. By mid-January, I felt like the vision of health. I was following my list strictly and my mental health benefited greatly from it. I even became a bit of a snob about it - “why isn’t everyone doing this stuff all of the time? It’s life changing!”

Then hits Saturday 18th January. I wake up with a heaviness in my chest, and when I get out of bed it feels like there is a heavy, heavy weight on my shoulders. I walk around the house and as I move it feels like I am dragging my legs through water. It had been a big and busy week for me so I thought a rest day was just what I needed. I proceeded to slump onto the couch and binge Ginny & Georgia on Netflix for the day, with a brief pause for a panic attack.

3 days later, I found myself sat on the same spot, on the same couch, doing the same thing (different show because, of course, Ginny & Georgia was binged over the weekend). I had left the house a handful of times for a brief walk to try and get some air, but each morning I tried to get up and leave the house it was like a ton of bricks sat on my chest and thrust me back onto the couch.

I couldn’t fathom the thought of facing the day because it felt like I was going to spiral into a panic attack just thinking about it. I felt depressed. Deeply, deeply depressed, with no real rhyme or reason. That is the thing with depression. It can hit us when we least expect it and sometimes it likes to pay a visit without much of a trigger.

In the space of 4 days, I had gone from being the vision of health to being slumped on the couch, dehydrated, sleep deprived (anxiety was giving me insomnia), turning to junk food and not able to even formulate a thought about gratitude or mindfulness. At this point, I am struggling to even shower or brush my teeth.

I think back to 18th January Abbie and roll my eyes. My depression became worse because I thought about my list and how unachievable it was for me then and there, and I felt like a failure. I felt silly for thinking that I would be capable of fulfilling such a comprehensive self-care routine. And I sat there thinking ‘why don’t any of us talk about how hard this all is to maintain?’

In my home office, I have a blackboard with a saying on it: “focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase”. It’s my favourite quote, as it echoes the sentiment of my favourite necklace that was gifted to me by my parents, which says “one step at a time”.

In the midst of my depression/anxiety episode, I thought a lot about those quotes. I was in a state of mind where I felt overwhelmed by the thought of just having to do life. Overwhelmed at the thought of even leaving my house. Overwhelmed at the thought of showering or brushing my teeth, because I just wanted to lay on the couch and escape from reality for a minute.

“Focus on the step in front of you”, I thought. I realised that I was getting too caught up in the future . The ‘what ifs’, the fact that my self-care routine was failing miserably, and I decided that I wanted self-care to become about the step in front of me instead of the whole staircase.

Instead of thinking about the shower I needed to have or brushing my teeth, I thought about the step 1: getting off the couch. Then came step 2, walking to the bathroom. Then step 3, putting toothpaste on my toothbrush, so on and so forth.

Today I woke up with a different energy, I can feel that depression starting to lift. I am anxious but as soon as that anxiety creeps in I am asking myself: what is the step in front of me?

Everything seems a bit less scary that way, and as it turns out, self-care is a little bit easier when you don’t focus on becoming the ‘vision of health’ and instead decide to focus on the step in front of you. Take my list of habits, for example:

Mindfulness: instead of promising yourself a 20 minute mindfulness practice every day, you might instead focus on sitting down, then taking a deep breath, then taking another deep breath, and adopting some mindful breathing instead of a meditation.
Drinking 2 litres of water a day: in 2022, I had a 2L time increment water bottle. I ended up taking one sip then giving up because 2L was too overwhelming. Now I drink 4x 500ml bottles a day which feels much more achievable, all I have to focus on is getting through one small bottle then I will worry about the next.
Making a healthy lunch every day: becomes more achievable when you focus on looking up one healthy recipe, making a grocery list, grabbing one item from the list, then another, step by step until you find yourself cooking.
Going for a walk every morning: you might focus on first and foremost getting out of bed, then getting changed, then putting your shoes on, then locking the door, then taking some steps. Before you know it, you have finished your walk and you feel better and you’re not so overwhelmed.
Instead of being focused on starting a gratitude journal that you have to fill every day: you might just start by bringing the word ‘gratitude’ to mind, then thinking of something you feel grateful for, then grabbing a pen, then noting it down, not thinking too much about a longer term goal.

But maybe today isn’t even about your self-care items. Maybe today is about just getting out of bed, or taking your medication. Whatever it is, break it down into small steps and focus on the step that is in front of you. If you fail to carry out the steps thereafter, then come back and try again later, but at least you achieved something by ticking off that first step.

For me, the sense of achievement I get from carrying out that first step inspires and motivates me to face the next step, and the next, and today I am in a place where I feel more ready to face the day.

I wanted to create a tool to try and help other people who might need to focus on the step that is in front of them. You can access the worksheet for free by clicking the image below.

I hope this can help someone. Above all, if you are struggling today with your self-care or even just getting out of bed, I hope you know that you are not alone and that you can face this, one small step at a time.

Abbie Williams is the CEO and Founder of Letters of Hope. Abbie offers speaking engagements, training and workshops, the proceeds from which fund her mental health charity. Click here to learn more about Letters of Hope’s workplace mental health and wellbeing services.