Your old stories are not more important than your well-being. Even the demands of your family, the pressures of your job, and the good opinion of others are not more important than your well-being. I’m not saying those things are not at all important, of course. They are important. But they are not more important.
Let’s keep going: Your bank account, or what you believe to be the reality of your finances, is not more important than your well-being. Your ego and your big idea about who you are or who you’re supposed to be or where you should be by now are not more important than your well-being. Your desire to be right is not more important than your well-being. Your desire to be liked, your desire to be appreciated, your desire to be approved of are not more important than your well-being.
Pause right there: Can you imagine if you put your well-being ahead of your desire to be approved of? Sit with that for a second. What does that look like? Let’s say you’ve got a morning meditation walk scheduled, and suddenly you get a call telling you that a client is freaking out. Your self-doubt might take over, and you might sacrifice the walk so that you don’t feel like a bad businessperson or just a plain old bad person. But if your well-being is the most important thing, then you go on your walk with the understanding that you will return shortly, better able to be of service to your client. Can you see how radical this is?
Make some notes for yourself about what challenges might show up and appear to be more important than your well-being. (The kids, the boss calling, a headache, a phone call, social media, fatigue, an old story that makes you ask, “Why even bother?”)
What are some of the things that you currently believe are more important than your well-being? Go ahead and write them down. You need to identify these things and put big pink name tags on them so that you recognize them when they show up later. Because, believe me, they will absolutely show up later.
I once had a client named Maryann who wanted to start a coaching business while still working full time. When I challenged her to spend the weekend calling potential clients, she said, “Oh, I would, but I’m scheduled to work on a Habitat for Humanity house this weekend. It’s a work thing — my office does this every year.”
“Nope. You’re just going to have to cancel,” I replied. Maryann actually gasped. I continued, “Tell them you’re sorry, but someone else will have to take your place. Anyone can help build that house, but only you can build your business.”
Now, I adore volunteering, and I certainly understand the value of officemates gathering to do community work. I think it’s wonderful, and I’d like to see more of that kind of behavior. But I could tell that if Maryann was willing to put that commitment ahead of her dreams, then she would put everything ahead of her dreams, which meant that her business would stay just a dream. So, even though she felt like she was going to get demerits on her Good Girl card, she withdrew from the event and found a replacement. Later on she told me that not only did the weekend of calls have a good effect on her new business, but the officemate who replaced her deeply enjoyed the opportunity and began volunteering more regularly. So in fact, Maryann’s willingness to be “selfish” ended up being a triple blessing.
LITTLE CHANGES ACTION STEP: Write down five examples of how exchanging some of your self-sacrificing behaviors for more self-nourishing behaviors could benefit everyone involved. For example, perhaps delegating a recurring errand to the teenage driver in your house could both be a gesture of respect and additional responsibility earned to your teen and give you a much-needed break. This might bring better balance to the whole family. Or maybe there’s a volunteer gig that’s become more draining than satisfying, and so stepping back from that commitment might give someone else a chance to be a leader in that community. Making a change might give you more time for art and fun as well as giving the organization a chance to deepen their bench of volunteers they can count on.
6.
TIME IS SO SLIPPERY, isn’t it? The time spent in line at the bank goes so slowly you can practically feel yourself wrinkling up as you stand there. But the hour you spend on the phone with your best friend whizzes by. And remember the moment when they first put the baby in your arms? Time ceased to exist entirely.
I hear from. . . well, from almost everyone, really, that they have trouble managing their time, so here are a few critical little changes you can make today that will help you stop struggling with the idea that there’s never enough time and start enjoying the time you have.
Get Your Cell Phone out of the Bedroom
The first few moments on waking are an important time of day, especially for the creative, sensitive, and overworked person.
Your reticular activating system is the part of your brain that helps regulate your levels of consciousness and tells you when to wake up. (If you’ve ever wondered how one tiny sound, like the creak of a floorboard, can wake you out of a deep sleep, you can thank your reticular activating system. Isn’t the body amazing?) Science tells us that your waking-up time is one of your most creative moments in the day, because your brain has spent the night organizing your memories and thoughts, and your body is relaxed, so you are more likely to make unusual connections between ideas, discover new solutions to problems, and have especially entertaining thoughts first thing.
Nothing ruins the cozy mood of a morning like a cell phone. There is nothing on the internet that cannot wait for twenty minutes while you do some mindful breathing and think grateful thoughts.
There is a pure, animal pleasure in allowing yourself to gradually come to wakefulness, to stretch, to doze, to cuddle, and to greet the day with a big, delicious yawn. Even just thirty seconds of 4:7:8 breathing before you leap into action can benefit your whole day.
“But I use my phone for an alarm clock,” I hear you protest. Right. Cut that out. Go get an alarm clock. “But I have teenagers — what if they call in the middle of the night?” Okay, then put a little shelf or charging station near the door to your bedroom and leave your phone there. You don’t have to be out of touch if there’s an emergency. You just don’t want to begin each morning as though it is an emergency.
Don’t Check Email or Social Media as a Way of Easing into Your Workday
You’ve got your mug of coffee or tea, and you’re settling in at your desk. “Okay,” you think, “I’ll just check my email to make sure there’s nothing too pressing, and then I’ll get to the important stuff.” And the next thing you know, two hours have gone by, you haven’t gotten to any of the important stuff, and the rest of your day is crowded with meetings and calls.
Do the important stuff first.
The email can wait.
Honestly — how often have you received an email that couldn’t have waited two hours for a response? If your answer is “Well, it has happened,” then set your timer for two minutes, during which you may skim your email for anything that’s a genuine crisis. Assuming there isn’t one, go ahead and spend the next two hours on the important stuff.
Important stuff is the work that only you can do. It’s the work that yields long-term benefits. It includes any creative work, any educational or self-improvement work, strategic thinking about projects or business, planning, relationship building, developing new material, staying on top of accounting and administrative systems, and dreaming up new ways to spread the good word about your work.
The important stuff is the work that only you can do.
If you commit to spending the first two hours of your day on your important stuff, I guarantee that your overall productivity will go way, way up. I will also bet that once your team knows that you don’t respond to every little tiny request immediately, they’ll start figuring stuff out for themselves. Heck, they might even stop bothering you with the small stuff entirely.
Communicate Promptly, but