Self Care: Stepping Back

Yesterday I went for a walk which is one of my favourite ways to clear my head, reassess things going on in my life and work out what I want to work on or change. I realised one thing I don’t do enough of is things I enjoy. I am someone who finds it hard to say no to people so I usually end up taking on more things or committing to more things than what I am actually able to manage or is good for me. So I am trying to learn to say no to things that I don’t want to do and stepping back from things that aren’t good for me.At the beginning of last year I went through a period of a few months where I spent almost every other night out drinking. Now don’t get me wrong I enjoy going out but during this time I realised that this wasn’t good for me I wasn’t getting much sleep, I was working a lot of overtime, I wasn’t eating properly and on top of that I was drinking a hell of a lot. That combination wasn’t good for my body or my mental health so I started saying no to going out all the time, which firstly was great for my bank, but I started to find that I had a lot more energy and felt a lot better in myself.In the last few months I have just generally stepped back from things that I don’t enjoy. I am also trying to spend less time aimlessly scrolling things like Facebook, Twitter etc because I think I spend far too much time looking at a screen these days and I used to spend a lot more time actually doing things. I have already deleted all of the games from my phone and I’m making lists of books (I mean physical books instead of ebooks) that I want to read, films I want to see, restaurants I want to go and eat at and planning places I want to go and rather than spending half of my life on social media.Knowing the difference it has made on me stepping back from things that are negatively affecting me I am going to try and do more of it because it has definitely helped me.