You cannot care for other people when you have nothing left to give. You have heard that a whole bunch of times. So had I. Then I made caring for myself a huge priority and put it into practice, and I learned how little hearing it had ever done for me.
Watch the full video:
Self-care has been sold to you as a product
Fads, expensive gear, a post about it every morning. Go for it if you like that, but it is typically not what builds the muscle.
What builds it is plainer. It is a day-to-day life that you do not need to escape from. You get to the end of the day and you still have energy.
I love retreats. I use them for focused time, and they are beautiful. I do not need them to recharge anymore, because I built my life to do that work every day. If nobody has told you that is possible, I am telling you. It takes work, and those of us who are in the game have to step up and do it.
Related: Episode 1: When my brain hits the wall: how I reset in under 10 minutes
Putting yourself first is not selfish
Say it slowly if you need to. Taking care of yourself is not selfish.
It is also what you are demonstrating to your children, to your employees, and to your leadership team. They are watching how you treat your own capacity, and they will copy it. Putting yourself at the top of the list does not mean running over anyone else’s priorities. It means you know it is a priority for you, and you let others take theirs seriously too.
If you have never done this before, it will feel weird. Get over it. It matters too much to wait until it feels comfortable. I wrote more on this in DTMM: Take time for self care.
If you do not know what self-care means for you, start here
Some of you are reading this and thinking, “I do not even know what that looks like.” That is a fine place to start. Here is the process:
- Talk it through with someone. Ask what self-care looks like for you, out loud, with another person.
- Map it. Find out what recharges your batteries and what drains them.
- Carve out a little time each day. A little, not a lot.
- Break it into tiny steps. I am reading Tiny Habits right now, and the idea is to floss one tooth a day until you floss two, then three. Self-care works the same way.
- Expect the guilt and shrink the step until it cannot argue. If you have not been looking after yourself, you will drag guilt along with you, the voice that says “I can’t be doing this.”
For step 2, here is Know Your Depleters: Leading Well as a Different Thinker. Then read Part 2: What Does Self-Care Look Like for Dyslexics and ADHD. The daily basics matter here too, and I covered them in They Told You Food Was Negotiable. Your Brain Never Forgot That.
What changes when your life does the recharging
Life stops being a fight and starts being a flow. Everything else falls into place more easily, because you are no longer making decisions, leading a team, or showing up for the people you love from empty.
That is what I work on with the unconventional leader I coach: what self-care looks like for you, and how to make it a priority so the rest of your life gets easier.
What is one thing that reliably recharges you, and what is the smallest version of it you can do before dinner today?
JoyGenea Schumer
Personal Development Expert To The Unconventional Leaders
Video Transcription:
Self-care. Everybody talks about it. I can’t say it enough how important it is to place yourself and caring for yourself above most other things and caring for other people. You can’t actually care for other people if you’re completely depleted and you have nothing to give. It’s really that simple.
You’ve heard it a whole bunch of times. I’d heard it a whole bunch of times until I actually implemented it and made it a huge priority. I’m gonna bring it back home to you, my different thinkers, my unconventional leaders. You have to place self-care and care of yourself at the, at the very top of your list, actually.
It, and it m- and it’s gonna feel, if you’ve not done it before, it’s gonna feel weird. Get over it. It is so darn important. And I just wanna remind you of something. Self-care is all about taking care of yourself, but it is not in a way that is about fads. It’s not in a way that’s super expensive. It’s not in the way that you need to be posting about it all the time on social media.
Go for it if you want to, but that’s typically not what builds that muscle up. It, it’s about building a life day to day that you don’t need to retreat from. I wanna say that again. It is building a life day to day that you actually get to the end of the day and you feel energized. You don’t need a retreat to recharge.
Your life is recharging, and I’m going to tell you that is possible. If nobody’s told you that, it is possible. You gotta build that life, though, and it takes work. Those people that have done it, those of us that are in the game, you gotta step up and you gotta do that. It’s about discovering the fantastic things about you and fueling that pure, awesome energy.
It’s feeling all the feelings. It’s standing up and taking charge and making that a huge priority. Not mowing other pe- over other people’s priorities, but knowing that for you, it’s a priority, and other people need to also take care of themselves as best they can and be nurturing and building on that also It’s recognizing that investing in yourself is not a selfish act.
It’s not selfish, right? Did you see the long pause? That was so it could actually sink in. It is not selfish to take care of yourself. That is actually the point. That is actually the thing you need to be demonstrating to your children. Those are the things you need to be demonstrating to your employees, to your f- leadership team.
It is so important. So if, when I say self-care, if you’re like, “I don’t even know what that means. What is she talking about?” You need to have a conversation with somebody about what that looks like for you, and you need to start to map that out for yourself, and then you need to start to carve out a little bit of time each day.
I’m reading Tiny Habits right now, which I’d known before, but actually reading the book, and I lo- it’s breaking it down to flossing one tooth a day until you all of a sudden floss two or three. It is self-care. If you’ve not been taking care of yourself, you’re gonna need to break that one down into tiny steps, partially to fight the stupid guilt that you’re gonna drag with it, like, “But I can’t be doing this.
I can’t be taking care of myself.” Figure out what recharges your batteries. Figure out how to take care of yourself so you don’t need, like I said, whole weeks off on a retreat. Retreats are beautiful. I love them. I use them as f- real focus time. I don’t need them as much anymore to recharge myself ’cause my life is constructed that way.
Your life can be constructed that way, where it actually recharges you. I’m JoyGenea, unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach. I work with dyslexic minds, ADHD minds, autistic minds, all three of those in one brain. I help those people use that wisdom and knowledge and skill to be their edge and to do incredible things in this world.
If you’d like to coach with me, that information is down below somewhere in all of this gobbledygook of social media. There’s a way to reach out to me and have a conversation to find out how working with someone to help figure out what self-care looks like and how to take care of yourself and how to make that a priority so everything else actually falls into place nicely.
Life stops being a fight, and it actually starts being a flow. Yeah. That’s what I’m here for. Thank you so much. I’m JoyGenea Schumer, and maybe we’re gonna talk soon, and we can change your life and make it amazing.