The Biggest Misconceptions About Self-Care: Debunking Myths

Did you believe these too?

To tell you the truth – I LOVE self-care. I love it when I take care of myself because it feels great, and mean who wouldn’t love it?

Ever since I started my personal development journey, self-care has been a huge part of my life. Along the way, there were a few self-care myths that I believed affected the way I benefitted from self-care.

And these self-care myths happen to be very common. This blog post will be all about these self-care myths. You will learn of each of them, and what the reality truly is.

This blog post is for anyone who wants to get better and benefit more from self-care.

Let’s get into this.

1 – Self-care is selfish

“Self-care is selfish” is a common misconception about self-care.

The problem with this myth is that it doesn’t recognize the fundamental importance of taking care of yourself, before taking care of anyone else.

That is why, self-care is not selfish instead it is essential to maintain your overall well-being. Neglecting self-care can lead to burnout and affect your mental health.

So, instead of viewing self-care as selfish, embrace self-care as a regular practice to help maintain your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

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2 – Self-care is always supposed to feel good

This is something that I had believed as well.

But, don’t get me wrong – self-care is supposed to make you feel better in the long term.

While there are self-care activities that bring immediate pleasure and relaxation, others may involve discomfort or require effort. Self-care expands beyond those relaxation activities.

For example, self-care is taking care of your health, and sometimes the habits and routines you need to build aren’t always the easiest. For example, creating meal plans and meal prepping can be a challenging habit if you haven’t done it much before.

So, keep in mind that while self-care should bring you joy, there will be some that will take more time & effort (so you feel better in the long term!). A great way to maintain a self-care routine that implements activities you enjoy so you can have a good balance.

3 – Self-care requires lots of activities

I used to make self-care complicated. I used to have a whole list of self-care activities that I must do in a month. For example, I made it a monthly tradition to always go to the movies, hike, go to the beach… the list was endless.

And of course, I beat myself up if I didn’t complete that list.

Only in recent times that I learned that self-care isn’t about the quantity of activities, but the quality. Engaging in a few simple self-care tasks can be more beneficial than attempting to incorporate numerous activities over time.

Plus, when you figure out the activities that work best for you, you can create a routine that ensures that you have some self-care time.

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RELATED: 7 Ways to Stay Motivated with Your Self-Care

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4 – Self-Care is only about physical health

Before, when I first thought of self-care, my mind immediately went to how I felt physically.

But guess what… there are so many types of self-care.

Of course, you have your physical self-care. Then, you have the following types of self-care:

• Mental/Emotional
• Spiritual
• Intellectual
• Social
• Avocational
• Vocational
• Financial

Remember the 2nd myth where we talked about how self-care isn’t always supposed to feel good? This is where it applies.

For instance, with your financial self-care, sometimes you have to do some spending habits which don’t feel good in the moment BUT you’ll thank yourself in the long-term.

Another example is with your mental self-care. Sometimes self-care is getting rid of bad habits, and breaking bad habits can be challenging.

So remember that self-care expands beyond physical health, and sometimes it will take more energy on your party to maintain the other areas.

5 – Self-care is a luxury

Self-care has usually been glamorized as luxurious spa days, retail therapy, fancy face masks, and anything that could blow up a budget.

BUT self-care is not a luxury, it’s a fundamental necessity for everyone regardless of what is in your bank account. There are so many self-care activities where you don’t have to spend a dime .

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have that “luxury” kind of self-care when you want to, however, just like what we have mentioned in this blog post, self-care expands beyond those immediate “feel-good” activities”.

With that being said, don’t neglect your self-care, because neglecting it does affect your productivity and overall wellbeing.

Take a SMALL STEP

Here are some small steps to breaking these myths yourself:

1. List 5 of your favorite self-care activities.
2. List one or two areas of your life that you could focus more on.
3. Create a list of self-care activities you would like to try.
4. List the following types of self-care, and brainstorm at least one activity for it:

• physical
• mental/emotional
• intellectual
• social
• spiritual
• avocational
• vocational
• financial

5. Schedule self-care time in your calendar now.

To Wrap Up

Hopefully, you can see the bigger picture with self-care. We know that self-care is not supposed to be selfish and is a necessity, and while you’re supposed to get some good feelings with self-care, sometimes, it’s not going to always feel good 24/7.

Ultimately, self-care expands beyond immediate feel-good activities, but also includes various areas of your life and can include habits & routines that aren’t always the easiest.

If you see some value in having some handy resources for your self-care, I’ve got a free mini e-book called Small Steps to Your Self-Care! You can download it for free in the Free Resources Library!

In the meantime, don’t forget to make time for yourself today.

-Lauren 🙂

P.S I suggest you read these blog posts next:

• Self-Care No-No’s
• Popular Self-Care Tips that Worked For Me & Didn’t
• Essential Self-Care Practices

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