Self-Care Worksheets: 3 Tools to Help Your Clients
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Self-care activities are the foundational activities and practices that help us maintain our health and well-being. Self-care looks different for everyone, and activities that are restorative for some people won’t necessarily be the same for others.
It can often be difficult to determine exactly what activities feel nurturing and restorative, and as a result, part of your work with clients may be helping them identify what their self-care activities are. Together, you can determine what they can do outside of sessions with you to maintain their overall health and wellness.
What are some examples of self-care?
Some examples of physical self-care include some things like exercise, getting enough sleep, and eating well and regularly—but it can also include things like wearing make-up or clothes that make us feel good about ourselves, or going to regular doctor and dentist appointments.
While physical self-care is important, mental and emotional self-care also plays an important part in our overall health and wellness. Mental and emotional self-care can encompass a lot of different areas, like spending time with friends and family, engaging in religious practices, or spending restorative time in nature.
Why is self-care important?
Self-care is important for preventing burnout and helping us show up as our best selves in all areas of our lives. Part of discovering the self-care practices that work best is understanding our true needs, and identifying what would best meet those needs.
3 free self-care worksheets
These free self-care worksheets can help you and your clients determine what feels like successful self-care, and what activities may not be supporting them in the best way.
Nurturing vs. depleting activities worksheet
The nurturing vs. depleting activities worksheet clearly lays out different activities your clients do on a regular basis, and helps them identify whether those tasks re-energize or deplete them.
Have your client write down daily, weekly, and/or monthly tasks in the worksheet. These can include activities that are required, like work or family responsibilities, and also fun or optional activities that they choose to participate in.
Then, have them mark whether they find each task to be nurturing or depleting. This isn’t a simple “good” or “bad” distinction. Some activities that people enjoy may also be depleting if they take a lot of energy, and some activities can also fall into both categories. For these activities, it can be helpful to identify with your clients which parts of an activity they experience as nurturing, and which parts they experience as depleting.
From there, you can talk through each of the depleting tasks, and see if there are any that can be removed. Or, if they’re a required task, see if you can make any adjustments to make them more sustainable or manageable.
On the flip side, look through the tasks they marked as nurturing, and see if there are any they can do more often. See if any of the weekly tasks could become part of a daily routine, or if there are other kinds of similar activities that might be a good addition as well.
Self-care checklist worksheet
This self-care checklist worksheet helps clients clearly lay out what their most helpful self-care activities are. Being aware of how often we do (or don’t) do self-care activities can help us identify what areas we need to improve, and where we’re already successful.
This self-care worksheet is broken down into sections: emotional, physical, social, professional, and spiritual. You can encourage your clients to use all the sections, or together you can choose the ones that feel most aligned to their values and what nurtures them.
In each of the sections you chose to use, list out nurturing activities. You can pull from the activities your client listed on the nurturing vs. depleting self-care worksheet, or you can start with this worksheet first and list activities your client already knows help with their self-care.
Then, have your client rank each of the activities they list from the following metrics:
- I rarely do this / I don’t do this well
- I sometimes do this / I’m average at this
- I do this often / I do this well
- I’d like to do this more / I’d like to become better at this
The worksheet has activities already listed in each section, which you can keep to use as a starting point. You can also change them, add more, or remove any that don’t resonate with or apply to your client.
Emergency self-care plan worksheet
The emergency self-care plan worksheet is meant to help your clients have a clear idea of what does and doesn’t work to make them feel better in stressful situations. Having a clear plan laid out can be helpful in the moment, so your client doesn’t have to come up with what works for them in the heat of the moment.
This self-care worksheet is broken into three sections: What to do, what to think, and what to avoid. In the “what to do” section, have your client write down things they can do that make them feel better. You can pull these activities from the previous two worksheets, or if you do this worksheet first, you can work together to find what those activities are. There is also a section for your clients to list out people they can contact if they need support.
Then, in the “what to think” section, help your client come up with some phrases or affirmations that they can repeat to themselves in stressful situations that might help them calm down or feel more grounded.
Lastly, just as there are things we should seek out when we’re having a hard time, there are things and people that would actually make us feel worse. In the “what to avoid” section, have your client list out any people they shouldn’t reach out to in a moment of stress—such as family or friends who they historically have a challenging relationship with. You can also encourage them to list out activities that are detrimental to their overall health. Some, like drinking too much alcohol or other risky behaviors can be applicable to all clients, while others, like avoiding certain books or music associated with bad memories, will be more unique to your specific clients. You can help them determine what activities or behaviors they should avoid together in sessions.
Once your client has their plan all written out, they can keep this self-care worksheet as a resource to refer back to. You can also encourage them to write a shortened version on a card to keep in their wallet, or keep a digital version in their phone, so they have it at their finger tips wherever they are.
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