Productive Living: Self Care, with Jaime McLaughlin – TPW357

Self-care is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves and we don't have to feel guilty about it. Join Jaime McLaughlin and me in this latest episode of the Productive Living series as we talk about quick and easy ways to care for ourselves each day so we can be productive, efficient, and present for what matters most. Self-care is an important part of making a life that matters Jaime McLaughlin is a lifestyle coach for moms, a self-care strategist, and a professional hair and makeup artist. She is the founder of The Mac House Co. and the host of The Unfiltered Motherhood Podcast. Through her educational platform, Jaime helps women prioritize self-care daily - without the mom guilt. She is passionate about helping women take care of themselves in the midst of a selfless season of life and truly learn to thrive in all areas. She’s also a married mom of 4 kids. Jaime first started her career as a hair and makeup artist, working with weddings and other events, for about 14 years, all while having her children. Jaime breastfed all her children and was able to find a way to fit their feedings in, in between the events she worked at. This career initially was perfect for Jaime because she could fit time in with her family while still working on her career. After a while, though, it became more and more difficult to leave her children for events, especially when she was gone for 12 hours at a time. After having her 4th child, Jaime felt a really strong push to be done with weddings and other events, even though it was the only career she had never known. She felt there was something more for her. She made the executive decision to not return to doing weddings and events once her maternity leave was complete. Jaime's husband was supportive of this decision and this gave her space and time to evaluate what she wanted to do with her life. She knew she wanted to do something online, something she could do passively and scale over time. She started out by making a PDF beauty guide because women were constantly asking her about what techniques and products she used. Over time, this PDF guide turned into a beauty course and the rest is history! While working with women over the course of her career, Jaime noticed that they have so much guilt and shame associated with taking care of themselves and spending time doing it, and would compare themselves to other women they saw on social media. Jaime saw the opportunity to connect with these women, showing them how to care for themselves without guilt through The Confident Mom Method, which is now the main course she offers on her website, amongst others. Jaime teaches women that putting themselves last is not a good strategy and is not sustainable. It only leads to burnout. There are so many small habits that we can infuse into our day that can foster more energy, productivity, positivity, and joy. What does self-care really mean? The definition of self-care is: "The practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health, or the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress." Jaime thinks this is a great definition but she changes it up a bit to say that self-care is about proactively making choices and creating habits to ensure that you are able to sustain your lifestyle (or the lifestyle you want). Self-care can be a tool you use to thrive in your daily life, not just survive. Lately, self-care has become a bit of a marketing ploy and there are a lot of products on the market for self-care as well. These marketings ploys are all reactive though, not proactive,