9 Things You Rarely Do For Yourself (But Should Do Every Day)

What It Covers

Lewis Howes presents nine daily self-care practices that most people neglect while prioritizing others' needs. He covers morning phone habits, movement routines, confronting difficult tasks, emotional check-ins, boundary setting, vision alignment, mental input quality, gratitude practice, and evening shutdown rituals to build sustainable personal growth and prevent burnout.

Key Questions Answered

• •Morning attention control: Avoid checking phones for the first 10 minutes after waking to prevent external inputs from dictating emotional state. Instead, use this time for deep breathing, stretching, prayer, meditation, and setting daily intentions to train the nervous system for everything that follows throughout the day.
• •Consistent movement over intensity: Exercise for just 10 minutes daily to regulate the nervous system and build self-respect rather than pursuing perfect two-hour gym sessions. Movement serves as mental fog clearance and energy restoration. Consistency compounds better than sporadic intense workouts, and each session reinforces the message that you prioritize your wellbeing.
• •Daily uncomfortable action: Complete one avoided difficult task each day to build self-trust and prevent background stress accumulation. Avoidance creates low-level anxiety that erodes confidence over time. Taking action on uncomfortable conversations or delayed decisions compounds faster than motivation alone and transforms how you perceive challenges, eventually making you seek rather than avoid them.
• •Emotional regulation practice: Check internal emotional state at least once daily by naming feelings without judgment rather than only tracking task completion. A neuroscientist and brain surgeon identifies emotional regulation as the single most important skill humans should master. Awareness prevents burnout and enables better decision-making, relationship building, and leadership capacity through understanding yourself first.
• •Evening shutdown ritual: Close each day by asking three questions: what went right today, what was learned, and what can wait until tomorrow. Write down pending items to create mental closure. The brain continues processing unresolved stress during sleep, causing exhaustion upon waking. Proper shutdown allows genuine rest and recovery rather than rumination and nightmares.