Why small is the point
Most advice about looking after yourself fails at the same place: it is too big. A new routine, a new habit, a whole new morning. Then a hard day happens, the routine breaks, and the breaking becomes one more thing to feel bad about.
Kindness towards yourself works better at a smaller scale. Something you can do on a bad day, not only a good one.
Small enough to keep is the whole idea.
Five quiet adjustments
- Eat something before you decide anything. A surprising amount of self-criticism is hunger wearing a disguise.
- Lower one bar. Choose one thing this week that you will do adequately rather than well. Notice that the world continues.
- Say the kind thing out loud. When a friend is struggling, you know what to say. Say it to yourself, in words, even if it feels silly.
- Stop one scroll early. Not all of them. One.
- Leave one evening unplanned. Not productive rest, not a recovery routine. Just an evening with nothing in it.
If kindness feels undeserved
Some people read a list like this and feel a quiet resistance: that they have not earned it, or that softness will make them lazy. That resistance is worth being curious about. Where did it come from, and who did it protect you from?
Often it turns out to be an old rule, learned somewhere it made sense, that no longer fits. That is the kind of thing therapy is good at: finding the rule, understanding why it was there, and deciding together whether you still need it.
Written by
Nimisha Shrivastava
RCI Registered Clinical Psychologist (Reg. No. A114126) with an M.Phil. in Clinical Psychology from ABVIMS Dr. RML Hospital, New Delhi, and a PhD scholar at Christ University, Bengaluru. She works with adults and couples, in person and online.
About Nimisha