A Requirement For SUCCESS
"Do you LOVE yourself?"
It’s a question I ask many people and it gets them uncomfortable, sweating, and shifting in their comfy office chair pretty quick. Most times the answer is coupled with a stutter, long pause, ums, a look at the floor, a roaring laugh, or a blank stare.
It’s a strange question some would say. But it’s the opening to the next question. HOW? What does LOVING yourself even mean? (Take your mind out of the gutter for a second)
SELF CARE
What are you doing to take care of yourself? To be kind to yourself? What are the practices and habits intentionally in your life that are nourishing your heart, mind, body and soul
The sad thing is that many of us don’t have much in place when it comes to SELF CARE. We are the masters of OVERLOAD and taking on more. Our days are piled high with WORK STRESS and always saying YES. We do this in an effort to get ahead in our careers and a fight to keep up with the Joneses
Along the way, we unknowingly fall into the habit of putting ourselves LAST. I WAS a subject matter expert at putting almost everyone else’s needs before mine TEAM, FAMILY, COUNTRY! Sure for a short period of time, I was extremely successful with this approach.
But the truth is that Mack was always last on my list and it's one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made through my personal and professional development. I used to PUSH and PUSH. A perfect sled dog, brutal competitor, and critic
But like many, I CRASHED HARD…. I found myself in a total life reset in almost every way. It’s not until that “total life reset" hits that we finally commit to CHANGE
The first time I heard the term: SELF-CARE I was sitting in a mindfulness class for Traumatic Brain Injury survivors. I had no idea what it meant. Immediately it seemed like some Southern California HIPPY BS... and I was one tough macho commando and I could do it all on my OWN
But as time went on my lone wolf mentality kept failing. I finally started implementing those daily SELF-CARE practices.... and I immediately noticed I was adding more VALUE to those around me. I was able to GIVE more, PERFORM even better, and LEAD more efficiently. So I’ll put you on the SPOT and challenge you with the same question...
DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF?
If the answer is NO or you're unsure. How do you START?
I started by taking ownership of my bad habits. I took inventory of all the unhealthy practices and relationships in my life and I axed them over time. I truly thought I had a good foundation for success. I mean I had the pieces of paper to prove it and the resume bullets right?.. WRONG. I had to change 180 and it required a brutal level of honesty and daily humility check. My hope in sharing my reflection is that you don't let your life get hijacked by your PRIDE like I once did.
Stay Hard. Stay Humble. Stay Grateful.