Take Care of You First
Take Care of You First
Do you operate on the premise that being a ‘good’ wife, mother or business leader means taking care of everyone else before you take care of yourself? Do you believe:
-You are the only one who can keep all those plates spinning?
-You are the only one who can get the job done right?
-If you don’t do it yourself, it simply won’t get done?
-By the time I’ve shown someone else how to do it, I could have had it done myself.
You have just relegated your business to mediocrity at best. And worse, much worse, you have just made sure that EVERYONE you sponsor will only have a real chance of success if they break away from you.
Although this article is directed at women, there’s plenty for you guys to learn here too. Here’s the big question:
Where Is Your Attention Focused?
Do you think it’s your job to make sure everyone else’s needs come before yours? Do you allow your kids to interrupt and distract you whenever they want? Do you think every time the phone rings (a) you have to answer it and (b) you can’t say “no” to what the person is asking you to do?
Are you so focused on everyone else and what they need, that you simply leave no time for yourself. At the end of the day you have no ambition and no energy left to focus on what you need (or want). Your career, your personal development – nada. Nothing left for you.
Why Do We Do This?
There is much research that backs a good argument that we are biologically prone to care for others. Oxytocin not only is a catalyst to induce labor but it seems it also works to create that ‘instant’ bond between mom and baby. It also appears to feed our ‘care behavior.’
Although women today are a large part of the work force, we are still expected to be chief cook and bottle washer, plus the frontline skinned-knee kisser.
Add to this the cultural norms that help us form who we are and how we are to act, and we often grow up being what others think we should be, rather than self-determined. We live our lives using quite an array of rules and behavior patterns that we didn’t create and are not in our best interests (nor anyone else’s interests either).
No wonder it is easy to forget that we have lives, desires, ambitions and needs of our own that need feeding. Too often at the end of the day, there is no energy left to nurture ourselves let alone be the CEO of our business.
Can’t Let Your Business Get Too Big
Other-person-focused thinking sabotages your business. It sabotages your dreams. It sabotages your growth. As long as all your energy goes OUT TO OTHERS there is no way you will allow your business to grow. Deep down inside you believe that you have no time to build a thriving business much less work it. You are stopped before you start.
Rethink The Rules
What we often don’t realize is we accepted these rules without much thought. After all, they are normal, right? But are they normal? Or are they simply ordinary? This is what I mean. When something is ubiquitous, everybody is doing it, everybody believes it, whatever “it” is, can easily fall into the ‘normal’ category.
I could go on a long time about things that were once considered normal and right that we recognize today as, in fact, abnormal and dead wrong. Slavery comes to mind. Women not allowed to vote. Women couldn’t get credit in their own name. There is still a tough glass ceiling but it wasn’t too long ago that the idea of women as the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company was thought to be ludicrous. We were too ‘fragile’ to make those kinds of decisions (or to hysterical!).
Superwomen Thinking Limits Everyone
What kind of a role model are you if you don’t prioritize to get business done consistently over time? What kind of a role model are you if you won’t ask for help, get a mentor, a coach or join a MasterMind group, because you think you should be able to do it all yourself?
There is a huge difference between mentoring and doing because:
- Strong leaders are not ‘mother hens’. They create boundaries and stick to them.
- Strong leaders are not the “mother of all information”. They encourage (sometimes require) people to strike out on their own.
- Strong leaders say ‘no’ when they need to in order to maintain their sanity and run their business.
- Strong leaders take chances and are willing to fail and fail often. They encourage their downlines to do the same. How else do we grow and become competent?
If you think you have to take care of everyone else first, what message does that send to those people. “You can’t do it without me.” Is that really what you want your downline to think (or your kids!).
Blue in the Face
Let’s get up in the air for a minute for a birds’ eye view. You are on an airplane and suddenly those dreaded masks fall down in front of you. Both of the people on either side of you are having trouble putting their masks on. The air is getting thin and they are beginning to panic.
You do what you always do, and help them first. But now the air in the cabin is really thin and you’re beginning to see double. The mask in front of you is just out of your grasp. When you do finally grab it you can’t make sense of how to get it on your head.
The people next to you are trying to help. But they couldn’t get their masks on and they can’t get yours on. It was really nice of you to help them. They’ll be fine. And they get to watch you turn blue.
Are you doing too much for everyone else. Is your business turning blue? Are you?
Break The Rules
If you have bought in to the rule that it is your job to focus on everyone else, maybe it’s high time you break that rule and focus on yourself first. Creating boundaries does not mean being mean, selfish or unhelpful. It doesn’t mean ignoring your children or your partner.
Creating boundaries means allowing you to be whole, sane and empower others to growth and competency. That’s how businesses grow. That’s how people grow. If you’d like some help breaking rules that hold you back, check out our Fall Into Money program. Business building coaching at only $16.50 an hour. It’s guaranteed to help you break your self-limiting rules and start building.
What rule do you have to break?
