- by Sophie Pinkoski

As 2025 approaches, we come to the phase in the year where we reflect on where we’ve been and where we want to be. The new year is a time for resolutions and/or setting new goals - depending on how you like to think of it. In the rush to realize our greatest ambitions, however, it’s often easy to forget to account for one thing: taking care of ourselves. Filling schedules and creating new routines to achieve your goals requires balancing your ambitions with your wellbeing. Without integrating our own mental health and wellbeing into our plans, it can become difficult to sustain our development on a day-to-day basis, which can eventually lead to burn out.

In the past decades, it has been a journey, coming to understand the importance of mental health within our working lives. It started with the Industrial Revolution, which introduced 14-hour workdays for 6 to 7 days a week. Understandably, this system was unsustainable and by the 1900s, Henry Ford standardized the 40-hour work week, where he found that giving his workers regular breaks actually increased productivity. The modern work experience has since seen the rise of hustle culture for individuals who take on multiple jobs at once to afford a rising cost of living. Most recently, the pandemic has turned the way we look at our professional lives on its head once more. Remote and hybrid work made people re-evaluate their values and how their job aligns with them in order to better protect their joy. As a result, we know now that overworking ourselves to the detriment of our mental health is no longer worth the long-term negative effects to both our wellbeing and the bottom line at work.  

Our perspective of what success looks like has now shifted.

Prioritizing mental health before work doesn’t have to be seen as a failure or weakness anymore.

After all, our impact is not going to necessarily be in the hours we work, but in our impact. Even so, personal success doesn’t have to be tied to our job at all, but in how we achieve our goals and find meaning in our life. Finding validation in work nowadays has become about taking on fulfilling responsibilities that align with our individual skills and passions. We’re redefining our boundaries to preserve our mental health. Self-care is a significant part of this. But how do we face the challenge of maintaining our mental health when work takes up such a large part of our lives?

Here are some ways to integrate self-care into your workdays:

Add your needs to your routine–– Being unable to find time for your health in your busy schedule is a common struggle.

The key is to treat self-care as equally important as your work meetings and projects.

When you prioritize something, you make time for it in your schedule. Until recently, taking care of yourself was something we looked forward to at the end of the workday to wind down. Now, we’ve begun building it into our workday to help us process important information and decompress from intensive meetings or tasks. Taking breaks throughout the day can be as simple as fifteen minutes of meditation or taking a short walk away from your desk. Even intentionally breathing for a few minutes makes a difference. This allows you to shift gears from one task to another. Integrating wellness into your workday looks different for everyone, so experiment with what works best for you.

Foster a culture of health for your team––  Prioritizing your team’s wellbeing aids overall productivity and retains talent. Satisfaction at work means people are more capable of doing their best work. It keeps them both motivated and engaged. This starts with creating a culture where individuals understand what their wellness looks like. Model behaviors and habits that protect your own mental health.

If your team sees you taking care of yourself, they will see that their own mental health is worth preserving too.

Give them the tools and resources to easily manage their mental health such as counselling, gym access, or a relaxing break room they can use to decompress. Check in with them regularly to assess their workload and what you can do to alleviate their stress. This signals to them that you care for their wellbeing. A culture of empathy can go a long way to integrating self-care into your organization in general.

Set goals and boundaries–– We have now learned that working long hours is no longer synonymous with productivity. Overworking ourselves often has diminishing returns, leading to loss of focus, disengagement, and eventually burnout. When this happens, the quality of work can drop dramatically. This is why it has become so important to identify our limitations and set boundaries.

It helps to align these boundaries to your values and goals:

• Block out time in your calendar specifically for yourself as you would for work meetings. Be firm with this scheduling to ensure your team members understand and respect these boundaries you have set.
• Ask yourself what you need to do to achieve your goals both personally and professionally.
• Learn to say no to taking on tasks that don’t align with this, especially if you already have too much on your plate.
• Save space for development opportunities that will bring you closer to your goals instead. Actually take the time you’ve blocked off in your schedule for yourself. Putting it off until the end of the day may mean putting it off indefinitely.

Emotional intelligence and self-reflection can help you better assess when you’re overloaded beyond your capacities. Understanding what triggers your negative emotions will help you identify when it's time to take a break and deploy your coping mechanisms within your self-care toolbox.

Your wellness time is sacred. Use it when you need it most.

Create a space for your work routine–– It is important to keep your workspace separate from your personal space as much as possible, whether that’s at home or in the office.

Creating routines allows our brains to create associations with the spaces we do them in, hence increasing our focus and productivity.

Having a designated workspace helps shift your mindset in and out of work mode. This is why working at a desk and not in bed or on the couch is ideal, as it keeps your work and home life distinct from one another. Physically getting up and leaving that workspace at the end of your day makes it easier to wind down, even if this means simply shutting down your computer or putting away your files for the day. Personalizing your workspace to optimize your motivation is equally as integral, making it as inviting and energizing for you as possible. It should be a space you can be proud of with positive associations to ensure your working hours are as least  stressful as possible. There are plenty of things out of your control in your professional life. Your workspace is one thing you can control.

Consistently build healthy habits within this space you create for yourself to protect your work-life balance.

Putting your health first is essential for maintaining sustainable long-term growth and success. It keeps us engaged in the aspects of our life we enjoy and prevents burnout. When we protect our mental health in this way, we can rise to our full potential and be the best we can be.

Further Reading:

Embracing the New Year: A Guide to Prioritizing Self-Care, JTB Wellness

Four Ways To Optimize Self-Care At Work, Forbes

How To Prioritize Employee Health And Well-Being To Drive Success, Forbes

How To Prioritize Yourself And Work At The Same Time, Forbes

Creating a Culture of Self-Care in the Workplace, Calm

Don’t Feel Guilty for Prioritizing Yourself Over Work, Harvard Business Review