Put Yourself First and Feel Good About It

We know, we know…your inbox, the Internet, your favorite news source, they are chock full of stories about setting and keeping your New Year’s resolutions. We’ve even written about the power of setting intent with a New Year’s resolution.

You may have reached a point where you are so tired of hearing about resolutions that you don’t make one yourself. And that’s okay – it’s understandable.

Let’s look at it from another standpoint: how about deciding to put yourself first.

It is so easy in our day-to-day life to ignore ourselves. You start running on autopilot. You’ve got to feed the kids, get them off to school; take care of the house, pets, bills; support a spouse or partner; worry about job stresses. Before you know it, you have completely ignored yourself.

So why is it so hard for people to take care of themselves first?

Many people suggest that a sense of guilt takes over and you start to feel selfish for putting your needs first or taking care of yourself.  The result of this feeling is that you become over stressed, unhealthy, and truly not as helpful to your loved ones, friends and job as you could be.

So imagine how the problems compound if you are already overweight, have high blood pressure, smoke, etc…. The amount of stress you are putting on yourself only adds to the amount you eat, an increase in the number of cigarettes consumed, a reduction in the amount of exercise you get each week, or causes you a lack of sleep.

According to an article on SparkPeople, we all need to remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: human beings must meet their basic needs before they can move on to higher-level goals.

The author of this article offers a few guidelines to get started:

• Preserve your physical health with adequate sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
• Value your emotional health as much as the physical, with a support system of friends and a willingness to laugh—especially at yourself.
• Schedule fun activities on a regular basis—it’s just as important to plan pleasure as it is to plan work.
• Identify “busy behaviors” (or people) that drain your time and energy but aren’t really important, then dump ‘em, or at least minimize their hold on you.
• Kill two birds with one stone, combining family time with exercise, for example, which benefits everyone involved.
• Try to look at the problems in your life with new eyes to find solutions. If you’re a new mom, for instance, see if you can trade childcare with another new mom to get some time for yourself.
• Learn to say “No!” Your “yes” is valuable and should not be automatic. Instead, reserve it for the things that are most important to you.
• Don’t try to change every problem area in your life all at once. Start with one or two items, then expand as you get things under control.

Start with these baby steps to getting YOU back on track. Then arm yourself with the education you need to make your positive behaviors a habit that allows you to put yourself first.  Check back with us next week to learn more about how education can help you help yourself.

photo by: steven depolo