This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com This is the second of three pieces concerning self care. If you missed last weeks, or just want to read it again, you will find it here.

Self-care, who has time for that?

“If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?”

(Marie Dressler – Academy award winning actress 1868 – 1934)

This week I want to address the response that can often come up when people would probably benefit the most from including self-care into their routine. The “it’s a lovely idea but I haven’t got time to do anything else, everything else is just so important and urgent …” response

Sometimes taking action in a genuine emergency can be a form of self-care in itself – e.g. I highly recommend you remove yourself to safety if there is a fire alarm sounding!

However, sometimes we push ourselves by treating everything as urgent. This fire-fighting attitude generally focuses upon purely the short term – it misses the longer-term implications.

If you’ve ever done any first aid training you’ve probably had it well and truly hammered home that the first thing you do is check your own safety. The longer term focus being that you are very little use to anyone requiring your help if you take yourself out by injuring yourself first!

Likewise if you make yourself ill by not taking care of yourself you’ll take yourself out of the “game”.

While you may agree with this in theory, it doesn’t solve the issue of feeling that taking a bit of time to prioritise self care isn’t easy, even if it ultimately means you get more done long term.

Everyone’s commitments and schedules are different so this week I invite you to play with a question designed to assist you to identify specific ways that would work for you. This is a variation of a question I first heard Michael Neill use:

1. If you knew you were going to be paid £1 million* for finding time and doing self-care, what would you do differently to go about getting it?

* By all means adapt this question so that both the currency and amount means something for you.

Remember that what you do for self-care is something that makes a difference for you. Here are some examples of what I’ve seen others use and even done myself:

• Get up 1 hour earlier to do some exercise
• Write a shopping list before going shopping so you don’t get distracted and just buy junk food
• A carer talked to a family member/friend and arranged a set regular time for them to take care responsibility while they recharged and did something creative.
• Replace 30 minutes of watching TV to have a relaxing bath

The answer and self-care itself can be unique to you.

I invite you to commit for 1 week to using your new solution(s) and see the difference it makes to you. When I worked in the corporate world I found that although it appeared counter intuitive, getting up 1 hour earlier to go swimming before work actually resulted in me having more energy and was far more productive.

For most people 1 week is long enough for you to assess how this works for you. At which stage you can decide if you want to keep this as a regular event, amend bits or do something different. Just notice the difference this makes for you.

Have a busy week filled with more self-care

Love

Jen