Are you always taking care of everyone else and
forgetting to put yourself first? I’ll show you how to make your happiness a
priority without feeling guilty about it.
Throughout the week, how often do you put yourself
first? What about over the course of a month?.
As women, we find it really difficult to remember our
own happiness in addition to everyone else’s.
Frankly, we’re terrible at
putting ourselves first. We give, give, give but forget to give to ourselves.
I don’t know about you, but that definitely resonates
with me.
Part of putting yourself first is by making time for
the things you love to do that truly make you happy.
So be honest — are you someone who always puts
yourself last in the happiness department? I’m not saying that you shouldn’t
take care of your friends, your partner or your children, but what about you?
Aren’t you just as important? (Maybe even more so!)
Think about it this way; if your health goes down the drain, are you even going to be around or available to help anyone else?
Think about it this way; if your health goes down the drain, are you even going to be around or available to help anyone else?
Do you take the time to do things that have absolutely
nothing to do with money or achievement, but merely pleasure? Do you remind
yourself that those things truly matter? Or are you waiting to be happy?
What about your goals, hopes and aspirations? Are you
putting them off to the side until everyone else is taken care of?
Let’s talk about the reasons why you
should take your power back and make yourself number one.
1.
Your health
depends on it.
Seriously! This is a
pretty obvious one. Have you ever noticed that after a crazy, stressful week of
pulling long hours at work and feeling overwhelmed, you finally get to the
weekend and you wake up sick and don’t leave the bed? Oh darling, if you don’t
put yourself first, your body will certainly kick in and force you to! Stress
and lack of sleep weaken your
body’s immune system and leave you more vulnerable for all sorts of nasty
illnesses. Don’t even risk it!
2.
You hand other people’s responsibility for their own happiness
back to them.
Any
relationship should only make up 25% of your happiness at MOST. Getting into
the habit of changing to make other people happy only reinforces the mistaken
idea that their source of happiness is external and teaches them that they
should rely on you to make changes to suit them.
Now, making changes to suit someone else because you want to is
one thing. But going against what you really want and changing to make someone
else happy becomes terribly problematic.
3.
You teach people how to treat you.
When you don’t honor your own needs first, you run the
risk of letting someone else walk all over you. Selling yourself out risks both
of your respect for you and this is a very slippery slope.
People don’t get treated like crap when they have
firm, healthy boundaries and
consistently honor their own needs. They get treated like crap when they
whitewash what they really want and allow the other person to take advantage of
them in little bits over time.
4.
Your job can wait (and it needs to).
You're a much
better worker, creative thinker and faster executor when you take care of
yourself, which means the project that will take your frazzled, overwhelmed
mind four hours will take your well-rested, clear head two. It's always worth
it to get adequate sleep, make your "me" time a priority and show up
to whatever task you have at hand that day as your best self. Your boss will
thank you and your career will blossom much faster if you don’t burn yourself
out.
5.
Your romantic relationships will flourish.
Whether you’re
in a relationship or looking for
one, I guarantee your partner will feel more enamored with you and more
fulfilled in the relationship when you're not afraid to make yourself a
priority. First, by taking the necessary time for yourself, you give your
partner the freedom to take that time for him or herself. Everybody wins,
everybody’s happy! Second, when you're well rested, relaxed and centered,
you're much more fun to be around. It’s OK if your partner misses you for a
night because you need a yoga session and a bubble bath; the version of you she
gets afterward is 10 times the partner your stressed-out self would be. Trust
this.
6.
You remove the self-righteous tendency to become angry
and resentful when you give too much or change to please someone else.
I
think of this as “resentment-proofing” your relationship. If you give someone
more than you’re willing to give for any extended period of time, you’re
selling yourself out and you’re bound to deal with your own negative feelings
about it sooner or later.
Putting themselves second is how people end up
bottling everything up and then exploding later, saying that someone else
didn’t appreciate them. It shows that they were giving and/or changing to get
their partner’s approval and when their partner didn’t provide that in exactly
the way they wanted kaboom. If they had chosen to only give what they felt good
giving, then they wouldn’t have this dormant, pent-up anger-reservoir volcano
just waiting to explode.
7.
Your friends and family will benefit.
You think your
friends and family don’t realize when they're talking to you and you’re half
asleep or mentally distracted? Think again. These people know you best and love
you most' they would much rather have you happy, healthy and clearheaded when
they see you. Yes, even if that’s a little less often because you needed to
take some time for yourself! You’ll be a better listener and more enjoyable to
be around because you will be able to be truly present with them.
8.
Most importantly, you'll start smiling more.
When you are
at your happiest, you are at your most helpful to the world. We should all
strive to be our happiest and do those things that make us happy, every day.
Don’t feel guilty about it, you are able to show up more for others when you
start showing up for yourself first. So don’t be afraid to clear your schedule
for a restorative yoga class, take a walk in the park on your lunch break or
get yourself a massage, don’t be afraid to love you! After all, you are pretty
fabulous.
No comments:
Post a Comment