What's REALLY stopping you focus on self care?
Self-care is not selfish, it’s sustenance.
I am passionate about the importance of taking time out for ourselves, for self-care, for me-time. Taking time out to focus on what makes us happy isn't selfish, it's a necessity. But like getting enough sleep and drinking enough water it's often the last thing on our to-do lists. It's easy to blame our busyness - we're busy, oh-so-busy, crazy-busy, rushing-around-busy, cold-coffee-again-busy... but is that the REAL reason? Nope, I'm not sure it is.⠀It's about mindset. It's about putting ourselves last on the list. It's about filling up everyone else's cup and leaving ours empty. It's about paddling away madly under the surface but just keeping afloat. It's about needing to change how we THINK before we can change how we ACT. Clearly, we want to be the best we can be in the roles we play in our lives, so how can we focus on ourselves and not feel guilty or distracted by the myriad of demands on our time?
Ditch Perfectionism
I know I often let perfectionism be my shield. I promise myself that I'll get around to me just as soon as I've finished this quarter's planning, drafted that article or uploaded one more social media post. But really I'm just feeling guilty that I should be doing those things instead so I push them to the top of my list. All that busyness scratches my perfectionism itch, but to be my best self I need to give myself the gift of my own space and time to be creative, or relax or exercise or get out into nature... or whatever will fill my soul today.
Remember your why
If you've got a task-focused personality like me then often it's super easy to get bogged down in everything on everything we need to get done in our busy day. So we push our own self-care, our me-time, down to the bottom of the list. But if we can remember our WHY, the reason that time for US is important, whatever we choose to do with it... reading, painting, writing, working ON our business (instead of IN it), resting, dancing, meditating... then that can help us reprioritise ourselves. This is important because of the impact on our MINDSET, our ATTITUDE, our happiness quota. It's important because it allows us to come back out of that personal space to be the best version of ourselves with everyone else in our lives.
Time management
As women in business, our lives are FULL to the brim with tasks, that's for sure, but managing our time carefully can also help to create the space in our day to spend on ourselves. Limiting distractions, from social media notifications to email and phone messages, and techniques like timeboxing, (chunking up your available time and assigning tasks to that time for a set period), creates focus which means we're more productive for example. Whatever technique you choose to find the space in the day for you, know this... you are 100% are worthwhile enough to be the #1 task on your to-do list.