At the end of 2019, I read through my morning pages for the whole year.

They’re nothing special, just a brain dump of 1000 words a day I use them for all kinds of things: to process thoughts and feelings that might be keeping me stuck; to move past writer’s block; to explore a character’s voice I might be writing in my paranormal romance novels or to have a record of things that happen day to day.

In my yearly review, I look for themes, patterns, recurring thoughts and ideas, great ideas I’ve forgotten about, triumphs I missed celebrating and anything else that might strike me as something I need to either manage or to take with me into the next year.

As I read through the words my stomach tightened.

Almost every day contained a mention of physical pain.

Now, I know I have a chronic pain condition. I’ve written about it and I make efforts to manage it. It’s one aspect of my self-care.

At the micro, day-to-day level, I take my pills, I exercise, I manage my food, I take naps, I get massages.

But looking at the morning pages, and seeing the big picture, I was so sad to realise how much pain impacts me every day, and how much time and energy and brain space is preoccupied with managing it.

The Kaizen Approach

In business, there’s a concept called Kaizen you might have come across. It means continuous improvement. Rather than trying to make a single big change, small steps are taken all the time.

So within self-care, rather than trying to make a huge change like ‘take up swimming every day, and do 50 laps each time’, we would look at a small incremental change we can make right now, such as ‘when I use the subway I will take the stairs down, not the escalator.’

I’m calling this ‘incremental self-care’.

For me, this means looking at the factors that increase or decrease my pain, and taking a more methodical but micro approach to managing them.

This month and next, for my emotional and mental self-care (and I hope, perhaps, physical self-care, but we’ll see) I’m re-doing the excellent eight-week course from Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman: You Are Not Your Pain: Using Mindfulness to Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Restore Well-Being.

But I’m not creating more stress for myself with it. I’m spreading it out over more than eight weeks, and if I miss a day, I’m being kind to myself and remembering that every activity I do is a plus, rather than considering not doing an activity a minus.

For January, I’m also reducing sugar. I’m not trying to make a sweeping change, and cut it out entirely, but I’m trying to remember it each time I choose food, and make choices that might contain less sugar than last year.

I’ve also changed the physical set up of my laptop when working in the office. I’ve bought a monitor, so rather than hunching the whole time, I’m being more mindful of my posture, and look straight or up rather than down. It’s been strange to get used to, but I can see it’s completely changed my posture while working.

And that’s all for January, though I am creating a mind map with lots more ideas from which I can draw for the rest of the year.

Incremental Self-Care: What’s the in-the-moment 1%?

For my self-care, I’m also taking an incremental approach. At this point, I have plenty of knowledge, so it’s about the actions I take in the moment.

When I’m deciding what to do, I factor in the decision: which of these choices could improve my self-care (my emotional, physical and mental wellbeing) by 1%?

That might be about including small pleasures in my day to day, it might be about choosing to take my iced coffee that day without any sugar, or it might be letting myself have a short nap or rest for ten minutes instead of getting caught up in Facebook’s infinite scroll.

Incremental self-care is a way of including self-care in your life without making it another chore. It gives you choices that work for you rather than a prescription. And it’s a reminder for all of us that improving things by 1% many times can add up to a lot over the long term.

What’s Your 1%?

Now it’s your turn.

When you look at the day ahead of you, or even the next couple of hours, how can you increase your self-care within that time by 1%?

For example, as I wrote the paragraph about my new monitor above, I realised that actually, if the monitor was a little bit higher, it would help even more. So I looked around, found a cardboard box, and put it on it. It took one minute, and I can already see it’s a small but useful improvement.

Take two minutes now with a pad and paper and write down a list of 5 things you could do which would improve your life today, and your self-care, by a tiny amount each time.

Perhaps you could choose a sandwich over a sausage roll at lunchtime, or have a bottle of water on your desk so you drink a little more. Or you could set an alarm on your phone for every 20 minutes so you do a quick stretch or walk a few steps in between bouts of working.

Only you know what’s right for you, and only you can make the decision – but that also means you have huge power over your life.

Go for it. Make the incremental 1% improvement choice – and your life could be quite different in a year.