Your year of treats
We’ve reached the end of January and you may want to take time to look over all you’ve got done with #ResearcherRenew and give yourself credit for investing in yourself.
Your task today is the nicest of the lot. It’s to think of all the things you might like to do to make yourself happy, nurture yourself, or reward any work done throughout the coming year.
These could be small prizes you give yourself throughout the day – for example, tuning into a favourite podcast to make a journey to work more bearable, or watching your favourite TV show. Nourishment shouldn’t be used as treats, but you might want to show yourself you care with a breakfast of fruit, cereal or freshly made pancakes; a refreshing drink mid-morning; a packed lunch with your favourite sandwiches that you eat in the park.
Alternatively you may want to work towards for bigger achievements (a piece of art or jewellery; books and stationery; a concert; holiday; a new lipstick; or an item of clothing), perhaps using visual reminders of your goals; or images or other artefacts to remember them. Things like photos, ticket stubs, conference lanyards, or programmes. Items you can store digitally or as hard copies to look back on, or that help share your story and reflect your progress.
Continue to do those thank you notes, and give yourself lots of TLC and praise. Gratitude notes or journals may be useful too. Or you might want to write a ‘reward record’ where you note something pleasant to give yourself every day/week. Or schedule alerts to remind yourself to do something kind – to you.
If you found this difficult
It’s not unusual to feel guilty for rewarding ourselves, especially when we know other people in our immediate family, neighbourhood, or elsewhere in the world are in crisis or danger. If we’re coping with grief it can also be difficult to identify positives, let alone nourish ourselves.
Those with a history of poverty and neglect might particularly struggle. Financial constraints may also mean the things we’d like to use to motivate ourselves or enrich our lives are simply not possible. Alternatively, things that previously might have been a treat (for example a quiet evening watching television) have become our everyday, and their positive effects worn off.
You may also rightly question whether ‘rewards’ of daily needs (food, rest, bathing etc) should be made into ‘treats’. Flexibility may be required to identify new ways to experience happiness, perhaps pushing you outside your comfort zone or accepting some things may be poorer substitutes than past pleasures, but will nevertheless be better than nothing. Finding joy in the smallest of things may be more realistic, for now.
Imagine you were taking care of a dear friend. It’s often easier to think about how we’d assist someone we love than looking after ourselves (there is a lot more advice on ways to practice self-care for you and others in Being Well In Academia – particularly Chapter 3). What treats would you give to someone you care for? Note those, then apply them to yourself. Doing this may identify if you’re neglecting yourself, which may be a wake up call to change how you’re treating yourself, but may also feel distressing, in which case support from your doctor or a therapist may be appropriate.
Thank you for joining me for this year’s Researcher Renew. I hope it has been a comfort. All of the activities and challenges are designed to carry on across the year, and if any in particular helped you feel stronger or happier make a point of continuing with those.
You can keep in touch with me on Bluesky, Threads and LinkedIn for regular updates on research skills, self care, rights and wellbeing. I’d love to hear how you’ve taken the ideas we’ve tried in this January’s #ResearcherRenew, made them your own, or developed and improved them.