Five Reasons Your ‘Self-Care’ Isn’t Working And How To Change It

Randi Braun, CEO of Something Major, is the Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author of Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work.

If you’ve been feeling stressed out lately you are not alone. Research shows that 55% of Americans feel stressed on a daily basis, with one-third of us “completely overwhelmed” by that stress.

As stress mounts, many of us turn to that elusive thing we call “self-care”—taking time out of our packed-to-the-brim calendars to (ostensibly) take some time for ourselves.

But something is broken: As a society, we’ve never invested more into self-care, however, we’ve also never felt more stressed out. Here are five reasons your self-care isn’t working and how to change it:

1. You’re showing up, but you’re not actually showing up.

A few weeks ago, I walked into a nail salon for a pedicure. As I sank into the chair, I turned to my right to see the woman next to me actively participating in a Zoom meeting. As I turned to the left, I saw a man—also with his laptop open—feverishly sending emails. In a culture obsessed with calendar optimization and productivity “hacks,” we’ve devalued what it means to be present for a single activity at any given moment in time.

If your nail appointment was your self-care time, but you spent it working, is it any wonder your self-care isn’t working? Research from Harvard Business School shows that multitasking your way through self-care diminishes both the quantity and the quality of that precious time and can leave you feeling even more stressed than if you never took the time in the first place. Self-care only works when we show up fully.

2. You’re mistaking ‘maintenance’ for self-care.

As a coach, I often hear some version of this story: “I’m so stressed out and my self-care just isn’t working. The other night I went to Target to buy toilet paper and have some ‘me time.’ I didn’t take my work phone and nobody could bother me, but it didn’t help!” If you’ve ever told yourself a version of this story, let me help clarify: Buying toilet paper isn’t self-care. It’s basic maintenance.

Self-care is the act of nourishing ourselves so we can flourish—not simply function—and that distinction is critical. Saying that a toilet paper run is your “self-care” activity is like climbing into your car on a sweltering summer day and saying that you are going to “treat yourself” to air conditioning. That’s not self-care. It’s literally not dying from heat stroke.

Borrowing the metaphor, we’ve got to elevate what self-care is from not dying of heat stroke in the car to meaningfully enjoying the ride.

3. You’re not scheduling self-care until it’s too late.

One problem that we have is that our self-care is incredibly reactive. We hit a wall of stress and then we’re left doing damage control. That’s why scheduling time for yourself to decompress and reenergize works best when it’s done proactively.

In a busy work world where we stack meetings for eight to 10 hours a day, we need to take the same approach to well-being. Self-care takes planning, so open your calendar: Where can you schedule in daily pockets of self-care? Where can you claim some weekend time or plan something special that requires more lead time? Lock it in and commit to it the way you commit to a meeting with your boss.

If your schedule is “just too busy,” consider this fact: Research from Harvard Medical School concluded that showing up to work chronically exhausted had the same cognitive impact as showing up drunk. If you wouldn’t rip three shots of tequila before a presentation, why are you letting yourself show up “drunk” at work instead of budgeting the time you need to bring your best self to the table?

4. You’re prioritizing the wrong activities.

Just like any other relationship, sometimes we simply get into a rut… with ourselves. Instead of trying to do the same self-care activities that aren’t yielding the well-being results you want (it was Albert Einstein who said the definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”), consider reimagining what self-care looks like for you in this phase of your life.

There are four pillars of self-care:

• Physical, which is how we take care of our bodies;

• Emotional, which is how we take care of our feelings;

• Intellectual, which is how we use our brains for anything that isn’t work; and

• Spiritual, which is how we connect to something bigger than ourselves.

Maybe instead of running, the self-care you need right now is from the emotional pillar, like setting better boundaries in a relationship that saps your energy. Maybe it’s as simple as physical, in that you just need more sleep instead of adding one more thing on your calendar like a workout class. Today is the day to revisit these pillars and make a game plan to try something new.

5. You’re avoiding the core problem.

One reason our self-care fails, even when we’ve done all of the above, is that we have a core problem that is deeper than our self-care routine. In my book, I tell the story of a start-up executive who burned herself out at work… all because she was avoiding facing a divorce. Overworking was an easy way to avoid asking herself the tough question: How do I get out of this marriage?

If it feels like “nothing is working,” look around at your job and your relationships. What else besides your self-care “isn’t working,” and what are the steps you need to take to change that? This is a scary place to be, but a better quality of life waits on the other side for those who are willing to ask the question—and engage with its answers.

In a $450 billion self-care marketplace, we’re surrounded by people trying to sell us the most absurd quick fixes for our stress. The key often isn’t swiping our credit card, but rather making small tweaks to our habits to make our self-care routine more consistent and effective.

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