Self-care for business owners: 8 5-minute wellbeing journaling techniques

How’s your self-care going? If your response is “Huh? Self-care? Where am I supposed to fit that into my schedule?” Let’s talk. 

Self-care, filling your cup, looking after your health and wellbeing, whatever you want to call it is vital for everyone. We’re human beings with human needs like nutrients, movement and fresh air. While a lot of us put self-care on the back burner, cos we're business owners doing it all, we can’t afford to not look after ourselves properly. 

Why is self-care so important for business owners?

As business owners, everything is our responsibility. That’s great because we get to call the shots! It also means that when we’re not running at 100%, our business isn’t running at 100%. I know making time for self-care feels doubly challenging as a business owner because you have a lot on your plate…

But I can feel it when I’m not looking after myself properly. I drop my self-care routine because I’m ‘too busy’ so I don’t do anything to wind down from a busy day and struggle to get to sleep. Seeing as I haven’t slept properly, I wake up tired. I’m so exhausted that tasks take longer and I struggle to get everything done on my to-do list. Even though I cut out my self-care time to keep working, some to-dos get left behind cos the procrastination really kicks in. I get stressed about it, ‘don’t have time’ to do anything to process the day, struggle to sleep and the vicious cycle of overwhelm keeps going. 

When I’m stuck in this cycle, I don’t show up in my business the way I want to. I’m barely getting by. I don’t have the energy or headspace to drive my business forward. It’s unsustainable for my own health and wellbeing and it’s unsustainable for my business maintenance and growth. 

The good news is that getting back on track with self-care has the opposite - much more positive - effect. When I make sure to look after my mind, body and soul, I sleep better. As I’m well-rested, I have the energy, focus and motivation to take on the day. I get things done and make progress so I feel good about myself. The self-care practices maintain my energy, focus and motivation day after day and even on days that don’t go so well because it’s a safety net to pick me up when I’m down. 

I know which cycle I’d rather be in and would help me to build a bigger and better business! Breaking the pattern of forgoing self-care and picking up the routine of engaging in momentum-building habits doesn’t have to be time-consuming. It can be as simple as adding 5 minute habits to your routine.

Journaling for wellbeing techniques that only take 5 minutes

Self-care can be whatever you want it to be. Experiment and find your vibe with it. Journaling is a great place to start for various reasons. First, it’s simple. You just need a notebook and pen. Second, it helps you to look after your mind, body and soul as studies have shown that journaling improves wellbeing and and supports physical health. Third, it’s versatile. You can use it to track your self-care activities, reflect on their impact and as a self-care activity itself as you’ll see from these 8 journaling techniques that support your wellbeing. 

Mood monitoring

Sometimes running your own business feels like a rollercoaster. One moment it’s the best thing ever and the next you’re wondering why you even tried. Monitoring your mood is a really helpful self-care activity because it raises your awareness. Often the bad sticks out more than the good so it could help you see that you’re coping better than you thought. It also helps you to identify the reasons behind your change in mood. You could spot triggers or times when you need more support. Now you’re aware of it you can put support in place ahead of time. For example, I know I experience ADHD burnout usually about every 3 months. I get hyper-focused then I burn out. It’s a fairly predictable pattern. Now I plan for that so I can take time off to recover and get back at it.

How to get started:

• If you have a diary where you organise your time, draw a face depicting how you feel that day or score your mood out of 10 then reflect in your journal. 
• If you have a bullet journal, you could get creative with it. For example, different colours could represent different moods and at the end of each day, you colour a chart with the mood you feel. 

Gratitude journaling

Gratitude is my go-to self-care journaling technique. It helps with low mood, confidence and even goal tracking. When you take the time to notice and write down what you are grateful for each day, you have something to feel good about, proof of what you’re capable of and notice the small steps you’re making towards your goals. I like to use gratitude for visualisation too. I write down what I’ll be grateful for once I’ve achieved the goals I’m working on to remind myself what I’m doing this for and make it feel more achievable. 

How to get started:

• Write 3-5 things you’re grateful for each day. I like to challenge myself by writing the reasons I’m grateful for it and not repeating the same gratitude for a month. This really helps me to get detailed and see the small stuff I'd otherwise miss and really engage with the feeling of gratitude. 
• You could write your gratitude in your normal journal. Personally, I like having a specific gratitude journal so I can flick through and see all the things I've been grateful for as a quick reminder of all the good stuff when times feel hard.

Daily affirmations

Daily affirmations can change how you think and feel about yourself. It’s like rewiring your brain to let go of a belief which isn’t helping you and replace it with a belief that’s a lot more helpful. Instead of just saying your affirmation or reading it on a piece of paper on your mirror, how about you write it down in a journal? After a while of just saying it or reading it, it could become so familiar it loses some impact. When you write it out by hand, you have to pay attention to each word and letter, making sure you really take it in. 

How to get started:

• Come up with an affirmation. It could be related to a goal you are working towards or a limiting belief that keeps popping up. Simple is often best. Start with “I am…”
• Grab your daily planner, journal or random notebook and write down the affirmation you are focusing on every day for 90 days and reflect on the impact it has on you. 

Food & exercise tracking

What are you doing to look after your health and what impact is it having? That’s what food and exercise tracking helps you to find out. Instead of eating whatever, exercising when you feel like it and hoping for the best, you write down what you eat and what exercise you do each day and monitor the impact depending on your goals. You might notice that on the days you do yoga, your stress levels are drastically reduced or eating a certain food for breakfast helps you feel energised for longer. Of course, it’s good to eat well and exercise regularly anyway but when you can see it’s having an impact on how you feel and how you work in your business, you’ll be motivated to keep it up. 

How to get started:

• Get a diary or a blank notebook and write down everything you eat and every bit of exercise you do, no matter how big or small. 
• Measure the impact it has on your goals. If it’s to lose weight, you’d track your weight and measurements. If it’s to support your energy, you’d compare it to your mood tracker. 

Nature journaling

If exercise isn’t your thing, nature journaling could help you to get healthy movement into your routine. The basic premise of nature journaling is to document the nature you see. You could track what birds you spot and the types of trees and plants you walk past in a simple list or get crafty with photos and drawings. To spot nature, you need to leave your house. See where I’m going here? It encourages you to walk in nature. It’s not about how fast you can walk or how many miles you can clock up. It’s about mindfully noticing nature around you. You switch off and get moving at the same time. Be present and in the moment, breathing in time away from all the stresses of running a business.

(This is a bit sneaky because the walk itself will probably take more than 5 minutes unless you live in the middle of a forest but the nature journaling part can take as little as 5 minutes. You could start by spending 5 minutes in your garden each morning listening for to everything around you.) 

How to get started:

• Grab a blank notebook, write the date and bring it with you to write down what you saw. 
• If you want it to be more crafty and have more than 5 minutes to spare, take a photo of what you saw and create a collage representing the walk.
• If you’re an artist, draw pictures or paint your list of nature. Make it your own!

Brain dumping

Getting proper sleep is the best self-care practice. It doesn’t always come easily though. Writing out all the thoughts in your head before you go to sleep could help. You’re not tracking or measuring anything. You’re not supposed to be writing anything meaningful or even legible. You’re dumping everything going on in your brain on paper. When you let it out, it should be easier to wind down because you’ve given your worries the attention they were demanding and let them go by writing them out. 

How to get started:

• Put a journal by your bed. As you get into bed to go to sleep, write down anything and everything that comes to mind. 
• Then close the journal and let yourself go to sleep. You don’t need to fix anything at this time. It’s all been noted. 

Self-reflection

In the go-go-go of being a business owner, we don’t often take time to pause and reflect. A little bit of self-reflection can go a long way. You might find it helpful to schedule this time regularly, say every month, to raise your awareness. Read through your journal entries from the past month. What do you notice? Are there any patterns? These can be positive or negative; this is raising your awareness on everything. Notice what you notice, so you can see what’s helping you and what’s holding you back. Once you’ve noticed it you can use this information to make changes that actually help you. 

How to get started:

• Schedule a time in your calendar for a self-reflection journaling session. For example, the last Friday of the month or the first Monday of the quarter. 
• Read through your journal and note down anything you notice coming up a lot. Reflect on what you think is causing it and what you’d like to do about it to help you better manage your wellbeing. What can you learn from this?

Habit tracking

Want to make sure you actually follow through with a self-care habit? Try using a habit tracker. Your new self-care routine isn’t going to come naturally at first. You might forget to do it or feel unmotivated. A habit tracker reminds you to keep on top of your new habit and motivates you with the satisfaction of ticking a box and keeping up your streak. (We’re simple creatures really!) 

How to get started:

• Create your habit tracker. It could be a simple to-do list you tick off each day in your general daily planner. It could be a sticker chart on the fridge so you see it every time you make a cup of tea. 
• If you have a bullet journal, you can get creative. Draw a habit tracker to fill in. I’m not just talking about a simple grid but designs like a tree with 30 leaves for each day of the month. Whatever brings you the most satisfaction to fill in so the most motivation to stick with it!

My top tip for doing more to look after yourself is to choose 3 self-care practices. One focused on your mind (How are you managing the mind monkeys?), one focused on your body (What healthy movement works for you?) and one focused on your soul (How are you filling your cup?). It’s simple but effective - the perfect foundation for a self-care routine you can stick with. 

Create a Self-Care Plan

As business owners, we need to look after our physical and mental health in order to show up in our businesses the way we want to - efficiently and passionately! That doesn’t stop it from ending up on the bottom of our to-do list. As these self-care practices don’t need to take longer than 5 minutes, they’re a great entry point to build a solid self-care routine that you can rely on to keep you steady whatever is going on in life or business. As you pick up one practice as a habit, you can habit stack or extend the time you’re spending on each self-care activity. 

In the Find Your Vibe Business Club during July, we’re taking the time to review current wellbeing practices and create a self-care plan that fills in any gaps in how we are looking after ourselves as business owners. Think what you eat, the quality of your sleep and the exercise and movement that’s part of your regular routine. Join us if you could do with a self-care review so you (and your business) can thrive, not just survive.