Self care
Itâs great to care about other people and help them grow, but make sure you spend time caring for yourself, growing into yourself, growing yourself. Donât leave yourself out. Matter of fact, be at the front of the line. You canât be of any good to anyone if you arenât of any good to yourself. How can you love yourself if you donât know who you are? When I have children I will tell them this. Taking the time to grow into yourself by focusing on yourself, doesnât make you selfish. Not giving a shit about other people does.
Using some of your critical years where you should be learning about yourself on others leaves you with an unfamiliar self when everyone else is gone. It leaves you lost and wondering who else you can take care of, not realizing that one key person being left out of the equation is you.
We look at self interest as a bad thing and often mistake self-care for selfish. Selflessness is often praised. Of course people will praise selfless people if the other personâs efforts benefits the one making the critiques.
Of course we get to know ourselves by the relationships we form. Learning cannot happen in a vacuum, but we cannot always invest every ounce of our energy focusing on other people, their growth, their success, their dreams, their welfare. This includes family. If you do, we will be left without a clue as to how to take care of our own damn selves.The other option of course is to have someone take care of you, but let me tell you, even that is hard to learn when again, youâre the one always taking care of others.
Some ways to do this:
Create goals
Stay single for a while
Go on dates with yourself
Take time to learn new things; discover new passions
Stop being the go-to problem solver, esp for family & friends
Say no and no again. If itâs not a crisis, itâs okay to avoid it.
Let other people take charge
Try not to feel guilty about your decisions
Donât let people pressure you into doing what you donât want to do.
