Do you have a special routine you look forward to?
- A steaming cup of tea all to yourself on the one morning that all the kids are gone
- Your favorite baked good on the way home from errands
- A couple pages in that grown-up coloring book every Monday night
- Fill in the blank – what’s your favorite tiny treat?
If you don’t have a few little pleasures built into your schedule, it’s time to change that.
Here’s how to begin.
Think about some of the automatically good parts of your daily and weekly routines. What do you genuinely enjoy?
(Feel free to be trite.)
- The smell of your son’s hair after a bath.
- Seeing fresh flowers on the counter.
- A scented bath soap, just for you.
Make your list.
Some possibilities:
- A good cup of coffee or tea
- Savoring a piece of dark chocolate (or two)
- That first bite of your favorite baked good
- Fresh flowers in the house
- Sniffing those fresh flowers whenever you pass them
- Lighting candles in the evening
- Using your favorite scent
(Remember, nothing’s too small. If it’s “my newly quiet house every afternoon at naptime,” good for you.)
I’ll wait right here for you.
You’re back? Great. What did you come up with?
See what a being a filled-up woman actually feels like.
Fit those in more often.
Switching gears: Let’s talk about how you could enjoy these little treats more often.
Now that you’ve listed a good half dozen possibilities, let’s plan how to work them into your daily and weekly routine.
What’s something from your list that you could do every morning? Every afternoon?
What’s another small pleasure that you could add to your evening routine?
And lastly, choose a couple of tinier treats to do once a week. Not everything has to be daily; weekly rituals are good, too.
Here’s what I do: one cup of afternoon coffee, AFTER I’ve put the kids down for naps. (Coffee on its own is fine, but it’s getting to sip it in absolute quiet that’s the game changer!)
And for the weekly treat: a no-guilt sit-down with my latest fiction read (on the weekend).
I’ve lived by these practices as long as I can remember, and I swear by them as an introvert with 5 kids.
Now, where to fit these treats in:
- During your solo errand time if need be
- Those pockets of time when the kids are out of the house and you’re watching the baby
- After supper when you’re cleaning up the kitchen and they’ve all scattered to more fun activities
Be creative.
What sounds good to you?
How do you feel now?
Don’t your daily and weekly rhythms feel a lot nicer with those little treats built in? Something grown-up, something fun, just for you.
Take a sip of that coffee and enjoy.
So. What daily treat are you going to add to your routine?
Something that you can absolutely savor, and enjoy, that makes all the difference to you.
That feels luxurious.
And what’s going to be your once-a-week small pleasure? Choose a time that works reliably every week, and add it to your planner (or calendar).
(So you don’t forget to take that time for yourself!)
See what life is like after a month of tiny treats each day.
See how you feel when your enjoyment cup is being reliably filled.
Aka, see what a being a filled-up woman actually feels like.
Because I believe every introverted, work-from-home mom deserves to feel this way.
And I’m going to help you get there (if this sounds like a teenage fairy tale), or tweak your almost-there reality (so you can reliably live here).
How can you reframe your mindset to “I deserve a small treat” and take it, today?
