New year, new awesome stuff on the way! Being part of the Star Program means continually learning new skills, growing individually, and growing as a team. This month we had our first Skill Development call with the topic of Self Care, led by @AmyPenistone from the Community team. Amy is part of the Heart & Soul Ambassadors, a mental health initiative at Spotify to normalize having conversations about mental health.
Taking good care of yourself is very important, not just when you’re having a bad day but every day! With Amy’s help, we went on to learn how to identify stress and cope with it. Amy presented us a self-care framework with five elements helping us connect with ourselves, and providing concrete tips to bring into practice.
We asked a couple of Stars what they took away from the first Skills Development call, and here’s what they said:
@Billy-J: “Self-care is important and it's something that everyone should work on every day - not just when times get hard.”
Star: “Doing self-care doesn’t have to be a big/grand gesture every day, it can be something small, such as: taking a walk after a long day.”
@Hubo: “I’m so glad we had a call about this topic after being through a bit of a rough patch. Something that I’m definitely going to try is practicing self-care everyday and not concentrating it on a single day every once in a while.”
The main thing to keep in mind about self-care is that it’s everyday essential maintenance, not something you do when you’re overwhelmed. Also, it’s good to make sure your ‘stress bucket’ doesn’t overflow! If we can manage and understand our own unique helpful and unhelpful coping strategies we’ll find identifying what’s happening and what we need in these situations much easier. Last but not least: you can make your own self-care framework with these five ‘well-being ways’: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Learn and Give.
If you need some prompts to help you reflect, you can ask yourself these questions, depending on how you’re feeling at the time:
- What’s good in my life today?
- Who am I grateful for today?
- What went well today?
- What makes me feel in control?
- Am I letting matters that are out of my control stress me out?
This video can give some insight on how to reframe unhelpful thoughts.
Getting back into work after the New Year’s, this call was timed perfectly. No better way to start the new year learning new things and giving yourself the care that you need!
https://open.spotify.com/track/36phXHOKx8rO7CMp2vNX4x
This call was open to all Stars from the Spotify Star Program. If you’d like to develop new skills, share your passion for music and help others get the most out of Spotify, be sure to check out what the Spotify Star Program is all about!