Leadership Skills – Apply Your Leadership Skills to Your Own Life and Take Better Care of Yourself
Many good leaders and professional helpers neglect themselves. They often lavish unfaltering attention onto the people they lead or help while ignoring their own needs.
This article will address the importance of good self-care and offer proven tips on how to make it easy and fun while increasing your success.
Case Example
For many years, I have conducted workshops and seminars for busy professionals on self care, stress management and relaxation. I’ve asked participants what kept them from taking good care of themselves. The answers have always surprised me.
The answers range from “there isn’t enough time” to “I’ve always been this way . . . taking care of everyone but myself!”
Surprisingly, a high percentage of the audience said they didn’t know how to provide truly excellent care for themselves!
How To Give Yourself Top-Notch Care
A. Realize the difference between taking good care of others and rescuing them. So often the latter masquerades as the former. Rescuing only creates dependency. And it takes a lot of energy and time. Caring for others and leading them without rescuing is another matter!
B. Refuse to allow yourself to feel guilty for giving yourself a little TLC. There is nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, if you deprive yourself you will only be hurting yourself . . . and others. If you crash or burn out what kind of motivation will you offer? What kind of example will you be?
C. Stop and recognize that you are human, too. And you need care and feeding. Think of the consequences of ignoring your needs. How easy it is to squander our health away by working too hard or not eating a healthy diet.
Good self-care basics are not rocket science. It’s easier to do than you may think.
Interested in self-help? All self-help plans start with good self-care.
Three Big Tips To Ensure The Success Of Your Self-Care Plan
One, you may have to set some limits with people in your life, making sure they understand that you are truly committed to giving good self care. Let them know what to expect!
Two, don’t allow yourself to be talked out of your self-care needs. Establish a routine and stick to it.
Three, give good self-care even during a crisis or stressful time. After all, that’s when you’ll need it the most.
If you won’t take care of yourself, who will?
Case Example
I know a woman who is always reading a good book. She does it for herself. Yes, she is busy with her career, and she has a family who needs her, but she also needs to be a healthy, happy individual. So she does this one thing for herself. She reads a good novel and then starts another. It gives her time to relax and unwind, and each good book gives her great personal satisfaction. You might say reading is her special hobby.
What can you do to give yourself better care? Get a hobby, if you don’t have one. And always spend a certain amount of time pursuing your hobby.
Simple but effective.
The All-Important Relationship With Yourself
It pays to build and maintain excellent, high-quality business and personal relationships. But that all-important relationship we have with the self can be one of the most wonderful relationships of our lives. It is a relationship many forget about.
It is prudent to invest in your relationship with yourself. Set aside the time necessary to take care of yourself . . . time for relaxation and blowing off steam. Time for spending quiet moments alone. Time for just doing what you want to do.
Be responsible to the self:
— Take care of your health.
— Deal with stress.
— Grow your inner and spiritual life.
— Be yourself.
— Reach for your dreams.
— Live a life of courage.
— Endeavor to know thyself!
If you want to be your best, don’t neglect that all-important relationship with yourself. It is a hidden source of happiness and strength.
In a nutshell, you’ll be in good shape if you take time to recreate and have fun, eat properly, exercise, keep up with your doctor’s visits, follow a stress management plan, and take time for yourself — time alone.
Don’t forget . . . you can’t love others if you don’t start with yourself.