Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix.

Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that can help fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back in life.

Today I'm talking about self-care mistakes.

I hear so many people talking about self-care, and yet my inbox is filled with people who write to me asking why they aren't feeling better, even though they're taking better care of

themselves. One of the biggest reasons people find that their self-care practices aren't helping

them is because they're

making some mistakes along the way. You might be thinking about how can there be a wrong way

to engage in self-care? Well, there's not really a wrong way to do it. But there are some

misconceptions about self-care that can keep you stuck. I'll dive into the five biggest

self-care mistakes I see people

make in a minute. But before I do, let's talk about what self-care really is. It's essentially

anything that you do to take care of your health. That includes both your physical and your

psychological health. So self-care strategies are pretty broad. They can include anything from eating healthy

and drinking plenty of water to taking time off from work and having fun with your friends.

That seems pretty straightforward, right? So how could you possibly make a self-care mistake

that will actually leave you feeling emotionally exhausted? Well, here are five big

self-care mistakes that will do just that. Mistake number one, being reactive instead of proactive.

I hear a lot of people say things like, I decided to cancel my plans at the last minute because I

needed to take care of myself. But if you have to cancel at the last minute,

it's actually a sign that you're not taking care of yourself. If you over-schedule your life

...