How I LITERALLY Soften My Life Every Day

Adulting is hard. There I said it. And in the midst of it all, we tend to harden in return. And where does that get us? Knee-deep in hard life poo. And who wants that? Not me.

To balance things out and soften my life so my heart doesn’t solidify like a candied apple, I developed the habit of doing a Self-Care Audit everyday around the same time. Daily Self-Care Audits are the magic pill I was looking for in terms of getting my wellness game in order. Managing 2 kids under 6 and my own business in my 40’s, when I used to flurry into a frenzy over checking the things off my neverending to-do list — making this part of the daily to-do list literally changed the whole game.

If you’re like me, you’re wearing many hats, you’re motivated to make your dreams happen, your unstoppable creativity sparks like every 5 minutes and you want to magically make #allthethings manifest without selling out your true self.

Self-Care Auditing is my secret wellbeing-saving daily 5 min ritual to nurture myself through it all and I’m sharing with you the step-by-step deets of doing daily Self-Care Audits in this here article. 

What Is A Self-Care Audit And Why Does It Matter

A Self-Care Audit is an assessment of the various areas of your life important to maintaining your wellbeing. You rate each of these areas to get a clear picture of where you are deficient in self-care and where you’re actually really on top of things (as if!).

When we’re rushing through the day, putting out all the fires, even the most self-care aware person has a huge, chunky blindspot in the area of wellness. We also tend to habitually do that same 1-2 thing over and over (for me it’s the yoga pose “legs up the wall”) to try and soothe our frazzled nerves even if that thing doesn’t always help soften your day.

Conducting Self-Care Audits reveals to you that you actually have plenty of quick and easy options to fill your cup each day and alls ya have to do is one or two of them to feel more ease and inner calm.

How To Conduct A Self-Care Audit

Now, let’s take a look at how I do my daily Self-Care Audit in under 5 minutes and decide on what activities (or inactivity) I’ll do to best take care of my wellness needs for the day.

Step 1: Exit To-Do Mode

• Each morning after the boys are off to school, before I start doing all the things I feel called to do (laundry, appointments, grocery shopping, creating, etc.), I sit comfortably with my coffee or tea on the sofa or the bed.
• I set a gentle sounding alarm for 5 or 10 mins. Knowing that I’m only going to sit there for 5 mins or so does three things:
• It makes it realistic and doable 
• It makes that time sacred, and 
• It makes me committed to making it happen
• *Note: Not gonna lie, this doesn’t happen for me every single day and rarely happens on weekends. But I can strongly feel the difference between those days and the ones where I take these steps.

Step 2: Get Intentional

• I then take 5 mins to connect to myself and set my intention for the day using this gentle framework.
• Starting the day in a calm and controlled way is key to making space for softness in my day. In fact, the Self-Care Audit just becomes another undoable thing on my to-do list instead of being the self-care game-changer it is if I don’t start my day intentionally.
• A common daily intention for me is: “Today, I’ll use what energy I have to do the things that matter most to me.” 

Step 3: Audit In The Afternoon

• Right before I eat lunch, I do my Self-Care Audit.
• To do the audit, I determine how well I’m taking care of myself in the following 6 self-care areas:  
• Physical – Do I feel physically well?
• Mental – Am I mentally overstimulated? 
• Emotional – Am I expressing felt emotions or bottling them in?
• Spiritual – Do I feel connected to myself and the higher order of life?
• Communal – Am I over-isolating or am I connecting with others and feeling a sense of belonging?
• Professional (Work life) – Am I doing busywork or am I focusing my energy towards accomplishing my goals?
• I give each area as objective a rating as possible but I also make sure to tune in with my heart and my intuition to help me better determine the type of self-care I truly need each day. 

Step 4: Do A Self-Care Activity

• Once I identify the area of self-care that will best replenish me, I choose a self-care activity that lights me up at the moment and I do that activity as my afternoon break.
• Some self-care options I go to on-repeat are: 
• taking a nap or a long shower, 
• texting a loved one to check in,
• practicing yoga and meditation,
• going for a stroll in the park, 
• doing a face mask and polishing my nails, 
• grabbing a delightful dessert from the local patisserie.
• Comment below to share some of your favorite self-care practices.

What’s Next?

Counter to how it seems, living a soft life doesn’t come easy. It takes awareness, dedication, determination and motivation.

But it doesn’t mean that soft living is some unachievable uphill battle. There’s plenty of simple (AND easy — cos simple doesn’t mean easy) practices you can do to be able to take that sigh of relief and feel a deep sense of satisfaction, connection and ease.

Self-Care Auditing is one of those practices.

So, download my free Self-Care Audit assessment and take 5 mins to complete it daily or 3 times a week or whatever frequency feels right to you.

You can also find many more tools of softness and self-care —free and at various price points— on my website.