It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

The act of self-care has become yet another thing women are expected to be good at. Did you use the right filter for that ‘gram of your impeccably prepared acai bowl? Are the candles you just lit in your Snap story made from organic hand-poured soy or are they that mass-produced factory shit? And how can we stem the inevitable capitalist tide from turning something as simple as self-care into yet another thing to be bought and sold? These are all things I wrestle with as I order Dominos in sweatpants under the guise of ‘being good to myself.’ – quote via Amil Niazi

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.

Stop having hard conversations with people who don’t want to change. Stop showing up for people who are indifferent about your presence. Stop prioritizing people who make you an option. Stop loving people who aren’t ready to love you.

I know that your instinct is to do whatever you can to earn the good graces of everyone you can, but that is also the impulse that will rob you of your time, your energy and your sanity.

When you start showing up to your life wholly and completely, with joy and interest and commitment, not everyone is going to be ready to meet you there.

It doesn’t mean you need to change who you are. It means you need to stop loving people who aren’t ready to love you. 

If you’re left out, subtly insulted, mindlessly forgotten about or easily disregarded by the people you spend the most time with, you’re doing yourself an incredible disservice by continuing to offer your energy and life to them.

The truth is that you are not for everyone, and everyone is not for you. That’s what makes it so special when you do find the few people with whom you have a genuine friendship, love or relationship: you’ll know how precious it is because you’ve experienced what it isn’t.

But the longer you spend trying to force someone to love you when they aren’t capable, the longer you’re robbing yourself of that very connection. It is waiting for you. There are billions of people on this planet, and so many of them are going to meet you at your level, vibe where you are, connect with where you’re going.

… But the longer you stay small, tucked into the familiarity of the people who use you as a cushion, a back burner option, a therapist and a ploy for their emotional labor, the longer you keep yourself out of the community you crave.

Maybe if you stop showing up, you’ll be less liked.

Maybe you’ll be forgotten about altogether.

Maybe if you stop trying, the relationship will cease.

Maybe if you stop texting, your phone will stay dark for days and weeks.

Maybe if you stop loving someone, the love between you will dissolve.

That doesn’t mean you ruined a relationship. It means that the only thing sustaining a relationship was the energy you and you alone were putting into it.

That’s not love. That’s attachment.

The most precious, important thing that you have in your life is your energy. It is not your time that is limited, it is your energy. What you give it to each day is what you will create more and more of in your life. What you give your time to is what will define your existence. 

When you realize this, you’ll begin to understand why you’re so anxious when you spend your time with people who are wrong for you, and in jobs or places or cities that are wrong, too.

You’ll begin to realize that the foremost important thing you can do for your life and yourself and everyone you know is to protect your energy more fiercely than anything else.

Make your life a safe haven in which only people that can care and listen and connect are allowed.

You are not responsible for saving people.

You are not responsible for convincing them they want to be saved.

It is not your job to show up for people and give away your life to them, little by little, moment by moment, because you pity them, because you feel bad, because you “should,” because you’re obligated, because, at the root of it all, you’re afraid to not be liked back.

It is your job to realize that you are the master of your fate, and that you are accepting the love you think you’re worthy of.

Decide you’re deserving of real friendship, true commitment and complete love with people who are healthy and thriving.

Then wait in the darkness, just for a little bit…

… And watch how quickly everything begins to change.

1. Get ready every day.

How you show up to your own life each day — whether or not anyone else will see you — sets the tone for how you experience your day.

Whether you’ve spent the better part of the last two years adjusting to a work-from-home schedule, or have found it too tiring to put real effort in each morning, remember that you are what you most commonly do.

Take a few moments each morning to get yourself ready, even in the simplest ways. Adopt a personal ‘uniform’ of your favorite basics. Find a way to style yourself that’s both easy and makes you feel more like who you really are inside. Even if nobody else sees it but you, the way you feel has a strong influence into who you become.

2. Savor your morning coffee in quiet.

Take even just ten minutes to sit quietly and have your beverage of choice first thing in the morning.

This is a simple way to set a ritual around something most people do regardless, to treat yourself to something you enjoy, energize yourself, and ease into the day.

Remember that life is really about the way we savor the little things, so make sure you take some time to do just that.

3. Nourish yourself, and take your supplements.

Start your day with a meal that you love, and remember to take your vitamins and supplements. Try your hand at Nature’s Way’s B-stress for finding calm, St. John’s Wort for getting grounded, and Sustained Focus for those days when it feels like you have an entire mountain to climb within the next eight hours.*

Success begins internally first, and sometimes, it’s most important that we remember to give our bodies what they most need to be healthy and thrive.

4. Move your body.

Even if you don’t have time to get to the gym for an hour each day, start the morning by stretching or doing yoga on the floor, or even just taking some deep breaths.

If you can, take a walk to your local coffee shop for your morning drink. Whatever way you can get yourself up and moving and get your breath going is going to help you wake up and begin your day well.

5. Recite your affirmations in the shower.

Make a list of three to five things you’d like to be true about yourself. Repeat them to yourself daily. When we affirm our thoughts about ourselves, we begin to construct new beliefs through our subconscious minds. Affirmations can sound like: “I am brave,” or “I am healthy.”

Use your morning shower as a moment of quiet to repeat these statements. It will help you stay consistent, and some even believe that manifesting in the shower is powerful.

6. Set an intention for the day.

Each day, rise and ask yourself: How can I move the needle forward today?

It’s easy to let time pass us by while we take care of managing all of life’s little details, but it’s important to remember that what we plant now, we reap later. Each morning, decide on one small way you can move forward in a meaningful way, even if it’s just chipping away at a big goal.

Whether it’s writing a paragraph, exercising, meditating, or practicing managing your emotional reactivity, invest in something today that your future self will appreciate tomorrow.

7. Seek inspiration.

Whenever you have a pocket of time, use it to seek inspiration. Listen to music, or podcasts, or audiobooks. Sift through accounts that inspire you. Create digital vision boards. Do whatever you can to spark a little bit of interest deep within you, and then go from there.

The truth is that inspiration shows us to our desires, and our desires show us to our life’s purposes. Begin with the smallest things that make you feel warm inside. It will do more than you know.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

I believe that how you show up in the world is who you become in the world, and that your routine needs to reflect who you want to be — that’s why I partnered with Ulta Beauty to show you my morning routine. Some of the products that help me feel like my best self, like my NARS Natural Radiant Longwear Foundation, 10X Pro Straightening & Styling Iron and Kate Somerville’s ExfoliKate Intensive Exfoliating Treatment, are essentials in my daily life. Creating your own beauty in life is important, and it’s crucial that you have the right arsenal of tools to be the person you want to be.

I hope that when you realize you’re hiding behind your clothes instead of loving how they make you feel, you have the courage to pack them up and begin again.

I hope that when your space begins to feel cluttered and uninspiring, you have the courage to release that which doesn’t serve you.

I hope that when that sinking feeling comes over you in which you wonder to yourself how you ended up the way you are, you realize that you are being primed for your personal reinvention.

I hope that when you feel worn out and tired and a shell of your old self, you realize that a part of you is dying because another is being reborn.

I hope that this is the year you realize you cannot sit idly by and wait for beauty to strike you, and so you must seek it. I hope this is the year you find out you cannot trust inspiration to come exactly when you need it, so you must act anyway. I hope this is the year you begin to understand that you cannot leave the thick of your life — the deepest, most important parts — in the hands of someone else, and so you must create them yourself.

I hope that this is the year you realize if you want a beautiful life, you are responsible for creating it. If you want to feel at ease with yourself, you can no longer take a passive role in the details of your life. You have to consciously choose everything from your morning makeup to your linens at night. You need to learn to feel grateful for the simplest things, like your morning coffee and sunlight streaming through the side of the window while you make it.

I hope this is the year you realize that how you show up to the world becomes who you are in the world. You need to realize that you are never beholden to the person that you were. You are always in the process of unbecoming and becoming again, it’s just that most often, you keep choosing the same things.
So I hope you choose again.

I hope you decide who you want to be and then adapt to the behaviors that would make you that person. I hope you pick the clothes that make you feel empowered and from them build a uniform that you can always rely on. I hope you choose the makeup that makes you feel most like yourself, and make those products part of your routine. I hope you make self-care an essential part of your week, and self-love a nonnegotiable practice in your life.

I hope you allow yourself to love the things you love, even if they’re small. I hope you read the books you like, and don’t feel like you have to finish the ones you don’t. I hope you make playlists for every mood, have candles for every season, know that money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy the tools that help you get there.

It’s not a feeling that swells and overcomes you when you’re in the presence of something elusive and hard-earned. It’s not smoothing and glossing over your every imperfection until you’ve remade yourself into someone unrecognizable. It’s not about prioritizing what looks good over what feels right.

Creating your own beauty in your life is deciding you’re going to pursue what you love, in every detail of your day. It’s choosing to take a few extra moments to get ready in the morning, and show up as the person you want to be. It’s picking the bolder color, the riskier haircut. It’s investing in what you know your future self would thank you for, and letting go of what your past self wanted to release.

But most of all, it’s showing up to your life. It’s taking the driver’s seat of it all. It’s making sure you remind yourself what you have to be grateful for even when you’re feeling defeated, it’s making sure you allow yourself joy even if you’re afraid you’ll lose it. Those things will turn you around.

It’s taking care of your body and your mind. It’s learning to clear your head and ask for help when you need it, and relax when you deserve it.

A beautiful life is something you create, but it’s also something you choose to see. Sure, you can perfect your morning routine and change every detail of your outer life, but until you choose to appreciate the work you’ve done, see how far you’ve come, and believe in how much more you can do, it will all still fall flat.
So allow yourself that this year. Risk being vulnerable enough to hope, and keep trying. Your life is in your hands. Trust yourself with it.

At the end of the day, what you put on you should be a reflection of what’s going on within you. How you show up to the world is the way you communicate to the world who you are and what you’re here to do. This year, I hope you take it a little more seriously, adhering less rigorously to the standards that others have set, and more wholeheartedly to the vision of the person you really want to be.

And yet.

You go through life stymied by that ache. It crescendos and crashes. You get distracted by the news or your job or Twitter, or something that temporarily scares you a little bit more.

It goes on, until one day, you realize you’re being levied, haunted, by a pain you can’t quite decipher. Slowly, it wears you down. It’s harder to get up. It’s harder to go out. It’s easier to drink and then drink some more. Or maybe eat, or shop, or post photos of yourself to Instagram. Everyone has a different vice.

The more you are confused by the small, scary feeling you can’t figure out, the worse it gets. And the worse it gets, the more you become convinced that it’s a warning of what is to come. You start to attach thoughts to the feeling, fear stories.