When it comes to the mindset of self-care, most of us Type-A, driven entrepreneurs need to retrain our brains and philosophy. So many of us put ourselves last, because it’s what we think we need to do to get ahead. Does that ring any bells?
It’s so ingrained in our brains to think that anything that we do for our bodies or our minds comes at the cost of something else that’s important to us.
Fortunately, science and productivity research show us that is not true. But old mindsets die hard. It takes a little bit of a change in the way that we think and the way that we go about our daily habits and daily routines to actually start living this.
Self-care actually requires more discipline, more drive, and more strategy than not taking care of ourselves and just burning ourselves out.
What exactly does self-care mean? Self-care is not just giving ourselves a pass. It’s not just taking the night off and crashing in front of the TV. Self-care means giving your body and mind the resources they need to function optimally.
It’s about planning ahead to help your body and your mind work better. Sometimes it might mean taking a break, but sometimes it means getting even more O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E-D.
(But hey–you’re already working on getting more organized in your business. So it’s a small step to start channeling that organization into your personal life.)
It’s so important that we talk about this as entrepreneurs, because there needs to be a practical strategy behind this idea of self-care. Many of us don’t take better care of ourselves, because we’re not planning for it.
That means prepping, or organized meal-planning, or setting your alarm early, so you can get up and get a little exercise in before your day.
It means budgeting your time accordingly in the evenings, so that you’re not only going to bed early, but you’re also starting to wind down and shut down that technology and business projects.
I personally think that self-care takes just as much accountability as any other work project or skill that we’re trying to develop. It means budgeting your time.
It also means being strategic when it comes to outsourcing, and when it comes to nixing things from your to-do list that are not moving you forward. (Like spending 3 hours scrolling through all the business Facebook groups that you’re in.)
You know that domino effect when you stay up too late, tinkering on something in your business that probably isn’t THAT critical to it? Cue oversleeping your alarm, then feeling crappy the rest of the day, then relying on sugar to keep you going. We know that we know that we KNOW that this lack of foresight throws us off every time.
It takes strategy, drive, and honestly, it takes more work to analyze what needs to stay and what needs to go, and to outsource those things that we don’t need to be doing ourselves. That takes more time, but it is so worth it. It takes time to search for a virtual assistant, to set-up interviews, and to train someone. It also takes time to find a proper housecleaner or personal assistant to help you around the house.
That is making a creative, strategic decision to put your time to better use, and that takes some business skills.
As entrepreneurs, strategy is what will make or break us, not endless hard work.
When it comes to taking care of our business–and ourselves–we need to be thinking like the CEOs of our companies from the very beginning, not like our front-line employees. As long as we treat ourselves like front-line employees of our business, we will remain like front-line employees and our businesses will never grow. We need to be thinking about running an entire company, making it scaleable, and making it sustainable.
So many times we think “well, I’m just new,” “I’m not making money yet,” “I don’t have a product to sell yet,” So, we end up wasting 6 hours of our evening that we didn’t have to waste, crafting the perfect Facebook post that doesn’t have any real impact on our actual business outcomes.
Think about all the best, innovative, cutting-edge companies, the ones that are really competitive with the talent they acquire; they know that they have to treat their employees well, if they’re going to get the best outcomes.
The employers that are going to pay minimum wage, and work their employees to the bone, and not give them any time-off or recognitions for a job well done, will have a higher overhead, have a higher opportunity cost, have more turnover, and have less productivity. The same thing is true for ourselves! If we’re the CEO’s of our companies, we need to treat our team AND ourselves like those corporations. If you are your own boss, you need to create good working conditions for yourself!
The best, innovative, cutting-edge companies know that they have to treat their employees well, if they’re going to get the best outcomes.The same thing is true for ourselves! If you are your own boss, you need to create good working conditions for yourself so you can stick with it long-term.
It’s not reasonable to think that we can burn our candle on both ends exhaustively—nights, weekends, every single week for months, and years on end.
It takes a long time to get a business up and running. We need to create a sustainable model of doing business, because I, for one, really want this to work. I want to be committed to my business.
In order for you and I to do that, we need to set up goals that are realistic and carve out that pace that’s sustainable for the long haul, so that we can not only reach that finish line moment (if there is such a thing), but actually enjoy it when it comes.
