You may have heard the oxygen mask rule on a plane.
“Put yours on before helping others.” The first time I ever heard that when I was on a plane, I thought it was super counterintuitive. If I had a child next to me, my instinct would be to put their mask on. But obviously if you pass out, you can't help them. The idea that you need to be healthy in order to care for a dependent or someone that needs help makes sense to me when I think of it that way.
And it's the same way that I think about self care not being selfish.
Woven into the fabric of our society is the idea that it is not okay to take time out for yourself, and that you're being selfish if you do.
The misconception goes like this: if you're a parent or you're running a business, or you're a teacher, the people that you're serving must always come first. I don't know where these ideas come from.
It's the fall time busy season for a lot of us, and the thing that I see almost more than anything this time of year is total burnout. Just total complete burnout.
I'm not talking about creative burnout where you've been shooting up the same park for the last eight days in a row. I'm just talking about just plain old burnout. Because all of our clients, our family, our kids, and our pets come first for some reason. And I think it's wonderful to be a nurturing, caring person and to be someone that really wants to give their clients a stellar experience. I'm not saying that that isn't important, but what I am just trying to draw attention to is just to remember, to put your mask on first.
Try to get the sleep you need, try to get the water you need, try to take care of you, so that you can be a better business owner and a better parent and a better friend and a better dog mom.
So I wanted to speak to everyone, all ages. However you identify, I don't care. This is a human thing and it is important to take care of yourself.
This doesn't have to be a total overhaul of your life, or the way that you show up in the world.
I just want you to be happy and I want you to be creative, and I want you to thrive in your business. I want you to be excited about your business being busy, not feel like you're dying because your business is busy.
It's a strange paradox because we work really, really hard as business owners to get more clients, make more money, grow our businesses, and then that happens, and so many of us are just exhausted and burnt out. And what I've found, is that taking care of yourself, recognizing that self care is not selfish, makes all of this growth, all of this forward movement, all of this busy-ness way easier to manage and way more enjoyable.
So in the smallest of ways, if you can find time for you, do it. I don't want to see so many burnt out beautiful creative people. There's so much joy in just the act of creating.
And I want to see more folks enjoying it when it comes around when the busy-ness and the clients and crazy season come around.
Have a beautiful day.
