Do You Treat Your Plants & Pets Better Than Yourself?
When we bring other living beings into our lives, we have a responsibility to them. We are committing ourselves to taking care of them. For plants, we honour their basic needs for water and sun. Our dogs need daily exercise, walks, playtime, and trips to the vet.
Caring for our family members is the same. How is our spouse doing? Our children and parents?
At work, we often check in on the wellbeing of our employees and enjoy scheduling group activities, team building events, and ensuring we are providing for their needs as well.
So where exactly do we fall into our sphere of care?
Surprise, surprise — more often than not, our own self care is at the bottom of the pile. You see, this is what society has been teaching us for years: Put others before yourself and that is how you will be judged.
- Want to spend your lunches at the gym, but find yourself in lunch meetings instead?
- Feel like you need to take a mental health day, but keep putting it off?
- Know that you should start eating healthier, but who’s got time for that?
Bad habits turn into regrets turn into divorces turn into illness and disease. It’s time to put a stop to this vicious cycle and Put Ourselves First. We are actually the only ones who can choose to prioritize our own health and wellbeing.
Start here, with your non-negotiables
Stop reading this blog post and take a pen and paper and make a list of your new Non Negotiables.
- What is it you really want, but don’t have time for, feel you don’t deserve, or hasn’t been your priority?
- What is your intuition telling you that you keep ignoring?
- What is an honest assessment of your physical health? What do you need to start doing ASAP?
- What is an honest assessment of your mental health? How are you really doing?
- How are your relationships?
You see, this is actually a trick question. In order to take care of others, we need to take care of ourselves first. Not doing this is a trap.
