This is a guest post from Walt Hampton. I think it’s a pretty important message for us people-pleasers, especially during the holidays. Even on a good day, we’re reluctant to cut ourselves a break, to take care of ourselves, because we’re way too caught up with proving our worth to everybody else. We’re incredibly intolerant of our own weaknesses, our need for nurturing, time, and space.
It was a pretty hefty litany of challenges.
“If one of your team came to you with this long, sad story,” I asked, “what would you say?”
“I’d say to her… take the rest of the day off. In fact, take a long weekend. Do what you need to do to take care of you; and feel better.”
I paused to let it seep in. “So can you do that for yourself?” I asked.
My colleague, a c-level exec, had come to me for some coaching. She was struggling with illnesses in her family, and challenges in her business. She had been “on” for a long time. She hadn’t been getting enough sleep. She had been doing little to nurture herself. She was worn down, stressed out and spread thin. There was nothing left.
“Yes,” she said. “I can do that. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that that’s exactly what I need to do.”
It’s because, as entrepreneurs and professionals, we are often harder on ourselves than we are on anyone else. We hold ourselves to incredibly high standards; even higher than those we hold for our people. We demand of ourselves sustained, uninterrupted peak performance. We are highly intolerant of our own weaknesses; and unforgiving of our shortcomings. We drive ourselves longer, harder and faster than we would ever reasonably expect of others.
And then we wonder why we’re flagging; why we’re flailing; why we’re not making progress; why we can’t get traction; why we’re stuck; why we’re not meeting our goals.
We can’t seem figure out what’s gone wrong.
Because we’re in our own way.
Taking care of ourselves, nurturing ourselves, being kind to ourselves… these are core success principles! The basic fuel.
For me this means adhering to my basic daily practices: my running, my journaling, my sitting meditation. It means eating well; and getting lots of sleep. It means going off the grid on a regular basis because, as an introvert, that’s how I recharge. And it means taking lots of time off to re-ground and re-create.
You already know what you need to do for you. The trick is to acknowledge that doing so is not wasteful but, rather essential to the work you do in the world.
Of course, like everyone, I drive too hard, and fall off the cart from time to time. (We teach what we most need to know!).
But I’ve learned that we can be cruel to ourselves… or be kind.
And kind works out so much better. For everyone.
