The High Achiever’s Sanity Saver Short List
If there was one thing that I could’ve told myself as a young girl that would serve me well the rest of my life, it would be “remember to be kind to yourself at least one time a day!” Here’s a short list of some of my favorite "Be Kind to Myself" prescriptions for you to choose from, learned from mentors and my giant stack of books:
1. Benign neglect.
You absolutely will never get it all done. Some things just need to be allowed to fall off the table. Remember the “big rocks, small rocks and sand” concept … put the big rocks in the container first, so everything fits. I would add, “...and forgive yourself if you don’t get to the sand.”
2. Re-establish “Priority” in your lexicon as singular, not plural.
At some point, working on “priorities” became a norm for me. Think about ONE THING instead. Ask yourself, "What is my ONE priority today? What is my ONE priority this week … this month?" I love the key quote from The One Thing (an awesome book): “What is the one thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”
3. Sleep an extra hour.
Particularly right now, we are using our brains more as we attempt to "re-combobulate" our lives and work under pandemic conditions: constantly adjusting, re-thinking, learning new remote working skills. Our brain uses 20% of our energy when we are at rest. Give your brain a thank you gift — an extra hour of recovery.
4. Personal care.
Do you have a list of personal care things that you neglect more often than not? Do one personal care thing every morning when you first wake up. Dry brush, file your toenails, massage and moisturize your feet. Do five minutes of range-of-motion movements for your arms, your ankles and your back. Or take a quick 10-minute walk. Scientists have found even such a minimal workout immediately improves memory function (kind of makes me want to do it every hour!).
Please share and add to the list! What are your favorite "Be Kind to Yourself" prescriptions?
