Self-care is important for all young professionals. The efforts you make to preserve your physical and mental wellness help you to navigate the range of challenges you’re likely to face. The more effectively you can implement such actions, the greater the positive impact will be on your career and your quality of life.
Many people only maintain wellness steps they can take in their personal lives. As a young professional, you should also adopt some you can practice in the office. Let’s take a look at a few key areas you can focus on.
Adopt Healthy Habits
One of the priorities of self-care should be to maintain your wellness. This doesn’t just help to ensure that you can minimize the difficult experiences of being unwell. Taking steps to maintain your mental and physical health while at work can also minimize potential disruption to your career trajectory.
Often, wellness actions are most impactful when you adopt them as daily habits. Accessible forms of self-care that you can implement into your day tend to be easier to maintain and have a cumulative effect. So, it’s worth utilizing simple and repeatable actions like taking time to do exercises at your desk and ensuring your snacks are nutritious.
You may also find it practical to build mindfulness activities into regular times of your work day. This might include spending 5 minutes at the end of the day writing a personal journal to better understand your feelings. Even simply taking a couple of moments throughout the day in a quiet spot to meditate is beneficial for your health.
Minimize Micromanagement
Work-related stress is a common issue. In many cases, one of the key contributors is excessive unnecessary scrutiny. Therefore, among the important self-care steps you can take at work is minimizing the presence of micromanagement.
If you’re starting to take on leadership roles, this act of self-care should include reducing your own micromanaging habits. Feeling the need to control every aspect of a project tends to put additional pressure on both you and your team. It can also prevent you from being productive, which is likely to add more stress. Don’t be afraid to step back and delegate tasks. This not only helps your mental wellness, but it can also improve relationships with your team and demonstrates leadership abilities.
If you’re an employee, start by being open with your company leaders about how their micromanaging behavior is affecting you. If this isn’t effective, it can be an important act of workplace self-care to look for a role elsewhere. You may find that professions in which you can work independently, such as accounting, copywriting, and consulting, are more beneficial to your mental well-being. However, it’s important to remember some of these positions require additional training and qualifications, or may require you to seek out your own clients.
Assert Boundaries
Something many young professionals struggle with is recognizing that a career is not the be-all and end-all of existence. Unfortunately, some businesses exploit this and set unfair expectations on employees to work long hours. This can damage your mental health and impact your work/life balance. Therefore, an important form of self-care in the workplace is to assert your boundaries.
Firstly, it’s important to set productivity boundaries that prevent colleagues from interrupting you from your flow state. Let them know what visual cues show you’re not to be disturbed, as too many disruptions are likely to see you overwork. You should also be strict about your start and end times. Communicate these clearly to company leadership and how such actions are positive for everyone.
You should also set clear boundaries around your breaks and lunchtimes. These may seem like minor elements, but they’re essential to your mental and physical wellness. Protect these both from external pressures to work through them and those you may place on yourself.
Conclusion
Practicing self-care at work can help safeguard your mental and physical health. It’s important to establish solid habits every day that prioritize your well-being. Make career decisions that reduce unnecessary sources of stress, like reducing micromanagement and maintaining strong boundaries. It requires consistency and communication, but you’ll find your life and career benefit from your commitment to these actions.
