As I write this, Minneapolis is enjoying a Top Ten Day for weather. The temperatures are in the mid-fifties, the sun is out, the breeze is mild and you’d never suspect that winter is just around the corner!
I’m not at all sure what the official criteria might be for proclaiming any given day a Top Ten Day, but I’m pretty confident it has to do with the striking contrast the day presents to other days around it over the course of the week or month. I also am not positive that every month earns a Top Ten Day OR that there are actually ten of them in every year – there could be eleven, and I’d never know.
When the meteorologists tell us their great news that a Top Ten Day for weather is headed our way, they make quite a fuss about it. They do this in an effort to encourage us all to go outside and enjoy the amazing weather, often with the caution that lesser days are likely to follow.
Whether you’re out-and-about enjoying the weather or not, it might be valuable to consider what makes any day a Top Ten Day? Weather aside, what does it take for you to regard a given day (in the week, the month or even the quarter) a genuine, Top Ten Day? If you were completely in charge of naming the criteria that would set one day apart from all the others, what would they include?
Self-care is every conscious action you take that feeds your soul, nourishes your body, nurtures your spirit, or replenishes your relationship with yourself!
Here’s my take on a such a day, a Top Ten Day has:
- Enough Sunshine and warmth to make me want to be outside – basking in the sun, feeling the air on my face, appreciating some facet of nature – regardless of the season, there’s always something amazing to capture my attention outdoors.
- Encounters with Others – I like to be alone a good bit of the time and would probably prefer alone-time to a big crowd of people. However an exceptionally good day, a Top Ten Day always has some exceptionally good encounter with someone else – a friend, colleague or even a stranger!
- Evidence of Time for Self-Care – It’s not a day I slack-off or make excuses. A Top Ten Day would be the one where I nail the diet & exercise intentions and maybe even add in other categories of self-care activities like work on my financial wellbeing or time for my spiritual wellbeing.
I often can’t control what any given day might bring – and of course, neither can you. The weather will be the weather – whether we like it or not! Time with friends may be in your plan, but it might also get postponed or not be the social encounter you’d hoped for. But, making time for self-care (especially as a criterion for an exceptionally good day) is often well within our reach, if we choose to prioritize it!
As you look forward to the week ahead, I hope you’ll plan for some Top Ten Days to be included in your agenda. Whether there’s adequate sunshine and warmth to suit your needs, whether there are positive encounters with you closest of friends, PLEASE make time for self-care.
And, as we head into winter, it may be time to adjust your self-care intentions a bit. It is important to ask your body/mind what it needs for the season of cold and cloudy that you know is headed our way. You may need more of something and less of something else – be generous with yourself as you make those seasonal adjustments. We all encounter them, but often we push right through thinking our chosen self-care practices should be sturdy enough to sustain us year-round. Sometimes they’re not!
I’m wishing you a string of Top Ten Days as we slide toward the depths of winter. May they be filled with the things you need most, the people you long to be with and the activities that feed your soul, nourish your body, nurture your spirit or replenish your relationship with yourself!
Take care, and as always – let me know if I can help!
