20. What Lights You Up? Exploring the Power of Personalized Self-Care

In this episode of The Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, we dive into the next step of the BECOMING method—discovering what lights you up! As healthcare professionals, we're often drained by our demanding roles, and what recharges one person may not work for another. That’s why personalized self-care is key. Learn how to identify activities and environments that energize you and bring more of those into your life while reducing the impact of energy-draining situations. Tune in to find out how this simple practice can revolutionize your self-care routine and bring more joy and balance into your daily life.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome back to another episode of the Nurse's Break Room with Jenny Lytle RN. And today we are jumping back into the becoming method way of seeing where we are now, where we want to go and how we're going to get there. And this is such an important part of self-care and of stress relief, because we are all unique. Because we are all unique and what really does a great job of de-stressing me, relaxing me, replenishing me, can be completely different than what that does for you. And this week we are focusing on excitement what lights you up? But just a quick recap if you haven't listened to last week's episode, which was baseline, I encourage you to just jump back and do that. It's a seven minute episode, you can listen to it super quick and it's going to set the tone for where you are now, so that you can see the progress that you're making and so that you're really focusing in the right direction. So the whole point of it is to get a clear picture on how things are going for you right now, so that then you can move forward and have that to reflect back on. So excitement what lights you up? It's about what energizes you. It's about the things that make you think I feel so alive, so great right now. I wish I could do more of this. So thinking about those kinds of things. We all have those situations and those people that really energize us and, of course, we also have those ones that really drain us. And so when we get clear on those situations and those people, then we know how to be able to incorporate more of the energizers in our lives and also to minimize or there are people that we really can't minimize our time with, but we can figure out how to best be with them in ways that don't impact our energy levels and just our overall sense of well-being negatively, and take time to think about what are the things that you really enjoy doing, the things that you could do for a long period of time and not feel, okay, is this over already? There's no limit to what these things can be.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Knowing the kind of things that energize you and that drain you is an excellent first step in really getting serious about putting yourself on your to-do list, because there are some things that are labeled self-care and they can be, but if you want to maximize your time and effort when it comes to self-care and stress relief, you need to do it in a personalized way. You need to take a look at the things that really make you feel better and the things that you enjoy doing, not things that feel like a chore, not things I really have to do this thing again. But what are things that you can have fun doing? And part of that depends on your personality and your unique makeup and your season of life, and so there's no need to judge. If somebody else is able to do this thing and really enjoy it and you just can't stand it, that's okay. But what are the things that you do like? And it doesn't matter if they're strange things to other people. It's about you and taking care of yourself and refilling your own cup.

Speaker 1: 4:06

So just a few examples it may be going out with friends or going on a hike, just sitting in nature, reading a book, turning everything on do not disturb and just hiding away from everybody for a little while. Especially working in health care, working in high stress, high touch, high neediness environments. That's something that can really drain us and sometimes we don't even realize the cumulative effect of that until we come to a breaking point and compassion, fatigue and cumulative grief. And especially working in hospice, working in ER, working in oncology or ICU or peds. There's so many areas and I'm sure I'm leaving some out, but there are so many areas that just are hard. Healthcare is challenging anyway. Nursing is hard work on so many levels, but then some of them have that extra layer. I know, as a home care and hospice nurse, my charting comes home with me and so that's something I try to do, most of it at bedside. But the ability to do that and not leave it all at work you know work is wherever I am and that's both a benefit and a detriment depending on how you look at it and how you approach it. And I know in the past I have had big issues with struggling to get my charting completed in a timely manner, and that definitely impacted how I felt overall, my overall stress level, feeling like I was never off.

Speaker 1: 6:01

And, to be quite honest, there are parts of what I do now that are the same way. I have three PRN jobs and one of them I work pretty full time and the other two I do just work occasionally. But there are things that need to be done for them. There's meetings that have to be done, there's trainings that have to be kept up with, and that in and of itself is a bit of a stressor, even though I've designed my life that way. My sleep schedule is a little wacky sometimes because of my regular nursing work schedule, and then I have a lot of things that I'm writing and connecting with people and and all of that is great and I love what I do and I'm so thankful to be able to do it all.

Speaker 1: 6:49

But it all still adds up and it may be similar for you. It may be that you're caring for a family member in addition to your regular work, or you have kids at home and you've got a lot of things going on there, or grandkids, or a busy social life, or you're very involved in the community. There's multiple reasons why we can be short on time and energy. But just coming back to that figuring out, okay, what I'm giving in all of these areas and some of them may even be areas that fill you up as well, but still we need that downtime. We need that place where we can just take a breath sometimes and then figure out what is it that I need to do to take care of me, so that I can continue to do all of the things that I love to do, maybe some of the things that I feel like I have to do, and making those things a part of our regular day-to-day lives.

Speaker 1: 8:02

This week, I just invite you to take a little bit of time and figure out. What is it that lights you up? What are the things that make you feel more energetic, happier, calmer? Jot some of those down. The next week we're going to be going into confidence. What makes you feel amazing? And this is going to get a little more personal, and I can't wait to dive in with you Until next time. Remember, not only is self-care not selfish, it's essential if we want to continue to care for others and live our best lives.