A hard-working client of mine in Italy just sent me the BEST picture- it was of her, in a plush bathrobe, in a spa in the Alps.
This client WORKS. I mean, she’s just balls to the wall in her day to day- she’s teaching, writing, mentoring, coaching…I imagine her over there in those beautiful Italian streets, just moving at the speed of light.
BUT THEN SHE STOPS.
She does yoga. She goes to spas. She goes to retreat centers. This woman HAS SELF-CARE down.
I was talking about work-life balance over on the In Arms Coaching FB page the other day.
For me, it’s not an option to NOT balance my work with self-care. I have an immune disorder that means that if I don’t take care of myself, I break. I stop working. And that’s happened often enough for me to take it VERY, VERY seriously.
But there’s a lot to do, right? I’m a mama. I’m a wife. I have a business I love that takes a lot of time and energy. And I have a dog rescue, that, by it’s very nature, operates in crisis mode about 70% of the time. (I don’t think animal rescue has a setting other than “911!!!!!”)
AND, honestly, I used to feel like I was SUPPOSED to look like a chicken running around with my head cut off. Everyone else looked SO busy- what would they think if I didn’t? Would I feel like I deserved my success if I wasn’t half-crazed all the time? Would I look like I just got things HANDED to me? (I didn’t. Trust that :-)) What about the crazy mass-belief that “THE MORE BUSY YOU ARE, THE MORE (plug one in: deserving. Successful. Worthy. Valued) YOU ARE???”
Have you ever heard that voice in your head?
Because of my illness, that old thinking really doesn’t work so well for me. And my clients don’t like it, either. Because of my illness, I have created tools and systems to establish my work life balance- AND, in fact, each year I work a LITTLE bit less, with MORE impact on women (and dogs) and a larger and more profitable business.
Does that sound good? Want to take a few first steps with me?
Grab a pen and your notebook and spend 10-15 minutes writing out your answers to the following questions.
1. What do you want for your personal life in the next 9-12 months? In your relationships? In your health? Start there. Make your goals as clear, measurable, and tangible as possible so you can actually evaluate them at the end of the year.
2. Next, what do you want for your work? For the impact you have? For the change you make in the world?
Now, think about what concrete goals you can set in your biz that will feed those- is it about becoming more visible? Growing your community? Getting one or two REALLY impactful offerings together? Writing a book?
AWESOME work. Read back over what you wrote: how does it feel to you? What fears do you have, or resistance (these sometimes come in thoughts that start with “But…” or “In the past I didn’t/wasn’t able to…”)?
NOW: how do you make it all FIT? How do you make time to give to each of the areas you wrote goals for?
I can show you how I do it, and how my clients learn to fit in ALL the things that are important- just step on over here and I’ll share a quick video to show you… How To Make Time for It All (and feel GOOD about your time!).
