Top 35 K.C. Davis Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Forget about creating a routine. You have to focus on finding your rhythm.” With routines you are either on track or not. With rhythm you can skip a beat and still get back in the groove.”

— K.C. Davis

2. “It’s stressful to try to summon up 100% motivation sitting on the couch. Let yourself use 5% motivation to do 5% of the task. Maybe you keep going. Maybe you don’t. That’s ok. Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.”

— K.C. Davis

3. “Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.”

— K.C. Davis

4. “If care tasks are morally neutral, then having not showered or brushed your hair in three weeks does not mean “I am disgusting” but instead simply means “I am having a hard time right now.”

— K.C. Davis

5. “If you go through your whole life thinking that every time you clean the fridge it has to be perfect, every time you take a shower it has to be perfect, every time you do a work project it has to be perfect, you will burn out and hate your life.”

— K.C. Davis

6. “Self-care was never meant to be a replacement for community care.”

— K.C. Davis

7. “Task initiation barriers usually present themselves as difficulties in transitions. So I’m sitting in a chair and I need to go do dishes, but it’s very difficult to initiate the transition from sitting comfortably in my chair to getting up to do dishes.”

— K.C. Davis

8. “In fact, I do not think laziness exists. You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities.”

— K.C. Davis

9. “Perfectionism is debilitating. I want you to embrace adaptive imperfection. We aren’t settling for less; we are engaging in adaptive routines.”

— K.C. Davis

10. “Interestingly enough, the subtle shift from obligation to option created motivation for me.”

— K.C. Davis

11. “You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.”

— K.C. Davis

12. “But sometimes the “right” way of doing something creates barriers for certain executive functioning skills.”

— K.C. Davis

13. “You do not have to earn the right to rest, connect, or recreate. Unlearn the idea that care tasks must be totally complete before you can sit down. Care tasks are a never-ending list, and if you wait until everything is done to rest, you will never rest.”

— K.C. Davis

14. “When someone demands the benefits of being a part of a family but refuses responsibilities to that family of which they are capable, it’s a form of entitlement that exploits the other members of that family.”

— K.C. Davis

15. “No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.”

— K.C. Davis

16. “Being kind to yourself while eating ice cream is healthier than hating yourself while eating a salad.”

— K.C. Davis

17. “Because you must know, dear heart, that you are worthy of care whether your house is immaculate or a mess.”

— K.C. Davis

18. “What does help is to just let yourself move as slowly as you need to. No timers. No agenda. You may not get it all done. But you get more done than you would’ve if you hadn’t done anything.”

— K.C. Davis

19. “Organization means having a place for everything in your home and having a system for getting it there. “Tidiness” and “messiness” describe how quickly things go back to their place. A tidy person typically returns things to their home immediately whereas a messy person does not.”

— K.C. Davis

20. “Laundry is morally neutral.”

— K.C. Davis

21. “Maybe you keep going. Maybe you don’t. That’s okay. Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.”

— K.C. Davis

22. “Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. It is more likely to contribute to dysfunction and continued cycles of unsustainable practices.”

— K.C. Davis

23. “Shame has never helped anyone’s mental health.”

— K.C. Davis

24. “There are seasons of life when we just can’t get all of our needs met, but the mental shift of seeing rest not as luxury but as a valid need helps you get creative, or at least validates it’s okay to mourn how difficult life is right now.”

— K.C. Davis

25. “I so often look back on these seasons of limping through and say to myself with tenderness, “Wow, I was really doing the best I could with what I had.” And that’s the funny thing about doing your best; it never feels like your best at the time. In fact, it almost always feels like failing when you’re in it.”

— K.C. Davis

26. “That is the life-changing result of internalizing that you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.”

— K.C. Davis

27. “Any task or habit requiring extreme force of will depletes your ability to exert that type of energy over time.”

— K.C. Davis

28. “Framing it as kindness instead of failure was the key to being able to wake up and choose to get things done the next day.”

— K.C. Davis

29. “Imperfection is required for a good life.”

— K.C. Davis

30. “Sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.”

— K.C. Davis

31. “If you have a particularly rude or pushy person in your life, you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.”

— K.C. Davis

32. “Take a look at the history behind the term self-care sometime. Start with googling Audre Lorde. It wasn’t always about yoga and hobbies.”

— K.C. Davis

33. “What is one thing you could do for yourself today that would be truly enjoyable for tomorrow you?”

— K.C. Davis

34. “For a lot of people, finding a method that bypasses the most executive functioning barriers or that makes a task a little less intolerable is better than what’s “quickest.” In the end, the approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most “efficient,” because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.”

— K.C. Davis

35. “A support deficit is not always someone’s fault. There are just some seasons of life we have to limp through.”

— K.C. Davis

36. “I realized that I only ever wanted to be skinny because I wanted to be loved and happy. But I already have that. Skinny hasn’t seemed very important to me since then.”

— K.C. Davis

37. “If you are in a season of life when there are simply more care tasks to be done than time or energy available to you and you have the means to afford help, it is the most functional thing to do. Does embarrassment stop you? “I could never let a housekeeper see the state of my home” is about as logical as “I could never let a doctor see the state of my health.” And so what if the housekeeper judges you? It is not their mental health you are responsible for but your own.”

— K.C. Davis

38. “If I viewed a day of screen time and not doing any scheduled care tasks as a failure, it would be a lot harder to “get back into routine.” But I didn’t. Trolls and pj’s day was a day when we were being gentle with ourselves, allowing ourselves to take it easy and rest – a day of kindness. Framing it as kindness instead of failure was the key to being able to wake up and choose to get things done the next day.”

— K.C. Davis