I’ve hit several crossroads where I’ve had to decide which way I wanted to move forward. For me, choosing was never really the hard part. The hardest part was feeling like my choice, that was deeply connected to my intuition, wasn’t what I’ve been told I should do.
Becoming a mom heightened this experience for me. An unexpected consequence of being a mom is having unsolicited advice hurled at me from others, whether they’re strangers or loved ones. It doesn’t feel like there’s enough time in the day to sift through this outpouring of feedback, yet alone decide how I actually feel about it.
When I thought about this, I thought about how much energy these considerations of what others say and think takes up. And this was just consciously but I know so much more is stored in my subconscious.
Meanwhile, the things I need for myself that are as small as quiet, still moments, nourishing meals, and movement for my body can sometimes take a backseat.
Can you relate?
Why Putting Yourself First Isn’t Selfish
Life is full and busy. In so many ways that’s wonderful. But it can also make it feel like prioritizing time truly caring for yourself is somehow taking away from time we’d spend doing (or taking care of) something or someone else.
But this is counterintuitive. Prioritizing ourselves is the foundation that makes everything else we do more aligned and effective.
An architect knows that skipping creating a sturdy foundation for a building is not optional. Yet in our own lives we make daily choices that push securing the foundation for our lives to the bottom of our to-do list, sometimes skipping it altogether.
If we go long enough without prioritizing ourselves, we can lose sight of what we need in our current phase of life because our needs evolve as our lives do. Losing this clarity means we lose our target which makes our days feel more disjointed and chaotic than necessary.
Knowing all of this makes the sentiment of feeling guilty for taking time for yourself, which naturally connects you to your intuition and what you want for yourself almost unimaginable.
Feeling guilty about needing to focus on things completely for yourself is like trying to build a house without laying the foundation. It doesn’t work.
In the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg he speaks about the lasting effectiveness people create through doing what he refers to as “Keystone habits”. When you perform a keystone habit, like exercising, it creates a chain reaction which triggers less procrastination and more efficiency in other tasks throughout the day, including simple things like washing the dishes.
Spending time on these keystones that help you operate more effectively don’t only affect only one area of your life. They create a ripple effect making it easier to put your best foot forward across the different parts of your life.
Five Key Areas to Fuel Your Foundation
I refer to these five categories as:
– health
– wealth
– contributions (like your work and volunteering)
– core essence (to yourself and your connection to something bigger than yourself), and
– community & connections
These key categories help me better envision the impact investing in my keystones can create. Making progress in one of these areas can be leveraged to support a goal in another. Some in obvious ways and others that require more creativity.
Growing your business has a clear impact on your wealth. How you use the wealth you create to contribute to your community, support causes that align with your values, and even build your own fund, scholarship, or charitable giving initiatives may require more thought. Who you’ll need to be connected with to execute these initiatives are things you can start working on today, even if the progression of the other goals will take time.
If we aren’t creating time to put ourselves first, we can miss these threads that reveal what we should be working on today that will make us better prepared for longer-term goals. The time we dedicate to journaling, working out, or whatever suits you is often when we come up with our best ideas. Skipping them because of guilt, lack of time, or for any other reason robs you from the ideas that could have been created from these moments.
In the book “Real Self-care” by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin she explores self-care beyond surface level or materialistic things we can pass off as helping if we aren’t careful. My biggest takeaway from the book was to emphasize consistent changes rather than settling for one-off indulgences.
With this in mind, the next time you think about investing your time in a way that puts yourself first, ask:
- Is this supporting me for a moment or a milestone? Thinking about the milestone can create more habitual-thinking, setting you up for longer-term benefits.
Incorporating putting yourself first into your lifestyle makes you overall better, not worse.
The next time you feel a hint of guilt, or even shame by craving something only for you please keep this in mind and consider all of the ways taking time for yourself ripples into positively impacting others, directly or indirectly.
As a mom, I see a meaningful difference in how I show up on the days I’ve nurtured myself at a foundational level. I communicate more clearly, am more thoughtful and compassionate with my delivery, and make more intentional plans. This is also true in how I show up in my business and life more broadly.
How to Flip Guilt Into Empowerment When You Put Yourself First
The next time you have a day that flows smoothly ask yourself:
- What contributed to the positive outcome?
- What did I do or not do that led to this feeling?
The next time you have a day that feels hard or overwhelming, ask yourself:
- What did I do, or not do that contributed to this outcome?
- How can I meaningfully change this tomorrow?
Setting down guilt that’s been hard-wired into us isn’t easy. But knowing why you’ll be better off is a step towards uncovering what a part of you likely already knows. Commit to the path of choosing yourself each day.
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