Self-Care

Happy Friday!

I hope you had a good week.

As you go into the weekend, I’d like to leave you with something to consider for your self-care. What is a healthy and productive activity you can engage in this weekend (if not just one activity) that you haven’t done in a while? One that will get your endorphins going and make you happy. It might be an activity you used to do but because life happens and with all of its tasks and responsibilities you have forgotten the joy it brings. This doesn’t mean that you are not happy or that you are not enjoying the time spent with family and friends. It also doesn’t mean to neglect the things you need to do to keep things going around your home. What it does mean is doing something for yourself that will leave you feeling deeply satisfied and rejuvenated so that you can continue wholeheartedly with the responsibilities and tasks required of yourself and others.

I’d then like to ask you what will keep you from engaging in the activity? I know resources might be an issue but if it isn’t then what else might be an obstacle? Could you find an alternative activity that is possible to engage? What I am getting at is you spent this past week at work and home confronting challenges and resolving problems. Why not put just as much effort into finding a way to engage in self-care? Problem solving shouldn’t be just for our external world and what we do for others. We must also be our internal problem solvers. It is a way to continue being an external problem solver when we are recharged.

Here are some self-limiting beliefs that might prevent you from engaging in a self-care activity but of course you can better define it based on your circumstances. We don't think it's that important for our well-being. We may need reconsider our priorities. We might feel selfish or allow others to make us feel selfish. Is it selfish to take care of ourselves to take better care of others? Well, to be cliché and as the airline’s safety briefing directs, your oxygen mask goes on first. No, I am not saying neglect your significant others or your duties to them. To that I suggest include them if you can; get up earlier; or do it after completing your tasks.

Okay, so you have had a bad week. You may have fouled a project, got reprimanded by your boss, or had a conflict with a coworker, etc. You might feel dejected and not motivated to do anything but what is expected of you for the weekend. Regardless of what happened during the week I am sure you will tend to your home life. Please get your self-care then afterward and when you are able do a self-debrief. Explore your role in the situation and how it can be improved. Maybe you think you’ll feel better and have better awareness if you don’t engage in self-care. What are your thoughts? It will be up to you to find out.

I’d like to leave you with additional considerations so you can get on with your weekend. I mentioned earlier some options for getting in your self-care. Still, you’re adamant you can’t make self-care happen. You’re probably not recognizing how much effort you expended and how much you accomplished this week. How much of that went towards your job and others? Why is it impossible to engage in your self-care? I’d like to leave you with this final thought. In their book Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life. Richard Paul and Linda Elder present a strategy for broadening one’s perspective on options.

"Rule 1: There’s always a way"(Paul and Elder 189).

"Rule 2: There’s always another way"(Paul and Elder 189).

I wish you a well-spent weekend!

Paul, Richard, and Linda Elder. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life. Boston: Pearson, 2014.

David is the owner of Partnerships for Performance.com a personal transformational coaching company.