How to practice self-care as a Virtual Assistant

You’ve heard the standard advice on self-care: eat well, take regular breaks, get outside. That’s the baseline. As a VA running your business from home, you need more than the baseline.

You’re already used to managing your clients’ needs and your own business at the same time, which makes you more likely than most to end up juggling an endless task list and struggling to switch off once the day is meant to be over. Add in the fact that most work-from-home VAs are also mums, and you’ve got even more competing for your attention every single day.

Why you need a proper self-care regime

Your working world and your home world blur together constantly, often exactly when you don’t want them to. You’ll naturally take the odd break, get outside, eat when you’re hungry. That’s not a self-care regime. That’s just getting through the day.

Stress is one of the biggest contributors to mental health problems, and mental health problems affect around one in four of us in any given year. Mind has a good guide on looking after your mental health if you want to read more. Looking after yourself, physically and mentally, isn’t optional. A proper self-care regime pays off in both.

Ten tips for a self-care regime that works

A good self-care regime helps you handle the demands of running your own business, cuts your stress levels, boosts your creativity and helps stop burnout before it starts. Here are our top ten.

1. Change how you think about self-care

Self-care isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential to working for yourself. Skip it and you’re on the road to exactly what you’re trying to avoid: burnout, stress, anxiety, tiredness, overwhelm.  You manage your own diary and so prioritise self-care please.

2. Sort out your beliefs about money and work

Your work patterns are often built on beliefs you’ve never actually questioned:

• work is hard
• there’s never enough
• there’s no gain without pain
• money doesn’t grow on trees
• if you want something done, do it yourself
• there’s never enough time to get everything done

Challenge these and you take the pressure off yourself, along with a good chunk of the stress.

3. Respect your own boundaries

It’s the small things that hit your self-care hardest. One boundary a lot of VAs need to hold: stick to a set working day. If you have to work outside your normal hours, charge a premium for it, and put it in your agreements.

4. Switch off, properly, on a regular basis

VAs live online. That’s exactly why you need to step away from it regularly. Build in daily screen-free time, turn your phone off, and if you need to, delete the social media apps.

5. Learn to say no

You can’t do everything. Saying no won’t always be easy, and it might disappoint or annoy someone. Say it anyway.

6. Schedule your own time

If it’s not in your calendar, it’s not happening. That applies to your own time just as much as client work. Time alone to relax, read, walk, or just be, is not an optional extra, it’s part of the job. Put it in the diary.

7. Practise gratitude

Practising gratitude trains you to notice what’s good, and makes you more reflective generally. Write down three things you’re grateful for before bed each night. You’ll sleep better and feel more positive for it.

8. Be kind to yourself

There’s no bigger act of self-care than being kind to yourself, and it touches every part of your life. Be kind about what you’ve achieved and what you still need to learn. Be kind about how you feel, and about how you talk to yourself.

9. Connect with others

Working alone at home gets lonely, and that’s one of the biggest obstacles solo business owners face. Build yourself a network of people who get it. It’s a big part of why the VA Membership works so well: it’s full of VAs on the same journey, wanting the same thing, a successful business and a life to go with it. You get the training and advice, and a space to connect and be honest when you need support.

10. Journal daily

Journaling clears your head, gives you perspective, and helps you understand your own thoughts and feelings properly. It’s a good way to spot the patterns and triggers affecting your self-care, and it often throws up solutions and opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

The bottom line

You’re already managing your clients’ needs and your own business at once. Your working and home worlds run on stress and the constant need to be available for others, so a proper self-care regime is not optional. It protects the most important asset in your business: you.

Running a VA business is hard work. There’s a lot to juggle while you’re supporting clients and earning a living, and it can feel like you’re on a permanent tightrope with nobody to turn to. That’s exactly why the tips above matter. And if you want a membership built for VAs, one that lets members support each other, share resources, learn from different business models and get real time advice from people who’ve actually been there, take a look at the VA Membership. You’ll be glad you did.