Personal self care is all about taking care of you and getting to know yourself on a deeper level. It’s about personal development to get a deeper sense of who you are in order to be true to yourself. It’s also about pushing yourself to be the best you that you can be. 

Personal development is a topic that I love. There are tons of fabulous personal development books and as soon as self care involves reading, I’m SO in! 

Goal Setting for Personal Development

Goal setting is everything to help yourself feel like you’re going through life with a sense of purpose. I like to have some small goals and some larger goals.

The smaller goals helped me feel a sense of accomplishment more often. Examples of small goals that I’ve had are: only eating out once a week, only drinking coffee in the morning (I’m telling you, that’s how much I love coffee), and working out Monday to Friday for a month. 

Having larger goals helps me to live life with purpose. Some of the large goals that I’m working toward are: completing house renovations, purchasing a trailer, and saving a large emergency fund.

Creating a vision board helps me keep my sights on my goals.

Create a Vision Board

I always thought vision boards were a bit “woo-woo”. 

But as I kept seeing them being created by goal-oriented people, I thought maybe there was something to them. I had the perfect spot over my desk and decided to give it a shot. 

I am converted! 

The process was wonderful. There’s a certain element of commitment to adding them to your vision board that really lets you hone in on what your true goals are. 

I love that my vision board is in a place where I see it every day. It allows me to revisit which goals I’ve achieved and need to be replaced and which I’m still gunning for.

Make Time for Hobbies or Passions

Making time for hobbies is something that allows us to get closer to ourselves. 

Too often, hobbies get pushed to the side when life gets busy. As teachers, that means basically every single day.

I love to read, do yoga, bike, run, cook, work on things for Learn Grow Blossom, and the list goes on… 

It’s important to make time for the things that you love to do because they help you feel the most like yourself. Those things are incredibly important to your personal self care.

Personal Development Books

It might sound cliche by the first personal development book that truly changed me was Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. Upon reading it, I decided to live my year or yes. It pushed me to say yes to opportunities at work, to participate in my first Crossfit Open, to start running again, and many other things. 

After almost three years, I’m still living by the same principles. 

Heck, had I not read that book, Learn Grow Blossom probably wouldn’t exist.

There are many other personal development books that are on my To Be Read list like:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
• Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

Have you read any of those books? Do you recommend any other personal development books?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I love getting recommendations from fellow readers especially on personal development books!

Further Reading

If you liked this post, you’ll love my posts on Physical Self Care and Emotional Self Care.

Check out these blog posts for more self care ideas:

• Keeping a Positive Teacher Mindset and Perspective by Student Centered World
• 7 Self-Care Tips for Teachers by Pencils + Playgrounds
• Teacher Must Haves for Self-Care At School by Learning Cove