Learning How to Take Care of Yourself: What I Wish Parents Knew
As young female leaders who, like many other teenagers, struggle with balancing self-care, we want to share our insights and advice with our larger Girl Talk community. In our experience, prioritizing self-care and building skills to achieve self-improvement is essential to maintaining your mental and physical well-being. As we move beyond our high school years, we must create healthy habits to manage schools, extracurriculars, work, family and friends, and all the other aspects of life. Our names are Samantha and Mili, and we lead our Girl Talk Club at our school as juniors. We collectively have had our separate journeys in self-care, but we both have experienced the struggles and pressures of balancing the many things life throws at us. However, through our individual experiences, we have developed a few applicable approaches to self-care based on our collective and unique experiences.
Keys of Organization
A great way to start is by finding your niche in staying organized, whether it’s a calendar, notes app, journaling, or a to-do list. Find what works best for you because self-care, including the organization process, will look different for everyone. Organization in planning is essential because it reduces stress and helps eliminate the extra time you can utilize for other areas of your life. Organization will help you build foundational habits that will strengthen as you work on them.
Importance of Communication
Communication is also a form of self-care, such as journaling, focusing on your mental and physical health, and listening to your body’s needs. Your mind and body work together to help you achieve everything you are capable of, and it requires that you take time to fuel yourself in the process of organization and balancing the many things in your life. Fuel for your mind and body means getting enough sleep and eating nutritious meals throughout the day. Sometimes, we neglect our needs because self-care can mean prioritizing ourselves to improve our health. That means you should reach out to coaches, friends, family, and teachers and let them know how you are doing if you ever need assistance in maintaining a healthy balance between juggling all the many things we all love or need to do. That could begin with writing an email to an adult beforehand if you would like to organize your thoughts or reaching out to another trusted adult or friend to help you find the best form of communication. The essential part of communicating with others is understanding what you need from them. That begins with you and goes back to organizing what you prioritize and how best to take care of yourself so you can do everything you want. Self-care should be a collective goal for you and the people you surround yourself with. The environment in which you strive to take care of yourself should be positive, with people who will uplift and encourage you along the way.
Community Support
Self-care is not a one-and-done type of deal. It is an ongoing process with yourself and, by extension, the people who can build you up. It’s okay to face challenges and come across days where self-care feels like a chore because there will always be growth that needs to be had, and it will come from the more challenging parts of your life. Not all pressure is bad, and even sometimes given to us in our best interest, but other times, pressure from the wrong people at the wrong time can be too much. As long as you understand how to communicate and push past it, work on yourself, and learn more about your needs, so will other people in time. Navigating how different people will respond to your needs might feel scary, but it’s all too necessary. Find those people who care for you and make you feel heard.
Overall, self-care is empowerment. It is a challenge for everyone and gets easier with time and consistency. Communicate your needs to others because sometimes people don’t know, and that’s okay. Also, know when to prioritize your health and find the best ways for you. Ultimately, we must ask ourselves and each other to learn about our needs and stay organized to communicate as clearly as possible. However, this requires grace with ourselves as well because progress takes time.
At Girl Talk, we recognize the strong connection between education and advocacy, and how when combined, they amplify the power of leadership. Through this blog series, Girl Talk Ambassadors are using their voices to spark important conversations. Each article in this series is an opportunity to bridge generations and encourage understanding between young leaders and adults.
As you reflect on Mili and Samantha’s insights, we challenge you to take action: start conversations with the adults or young people in your life and continue advocating for the change you want to see. Your voice is a powerful tool for leadership, and together, we can create a more supportive and informed community for all girls to thrive.