The thing is, self-care without the specifics that are behind its purpose and function (for you personally), really means nothing. It’s just one of the blah blah terms that we’ve all heard, all too often. Like most things, the more clarity we give the intention behind what we are doing, the better the outcome. And this goes doubly when it comes to practices like self-care.
Self-care is an important antidote to stress in the workplace which costs businesses more than $300 billion a year according to The American institute of Stress.
The practice of self-care
In and of itself, it’s a practice. Self-care is something that you create time for and practice getting better at. And by that, I mean acknowledging that you need if you want to maintain a high level of performance. Scheduling different activities or non-activities will help to bring you closer to your centre and restore a sense of integration, balance and control mentally, emotionally and physically. According to Morgan Consulting, ignoring your body’s needs can harm your ability to think, focus and support others in your team when they need or rely on your guidance. Being able to balance the challenges of work with the importance of self-care is one of the most important leadership qualities.Self-care at its most basic, is a practice in self-awareness, personal boundaries and self-compassion. All necessary attributes for leaders working in a fast past, high complex and often socially political environment.
Where self-awareness and self-compassion meet
Like any practice, it starts with presence and mindfulness. Prioritising yourself whether you’re at home or in the office is not something that for many of us comes naturally or easily. Culturally we are taught from a young age to ‘push on’, ‘work through it’. In Australia especially, we’re recognised globally as a nation built on hard work.
What research has found though, is taking short breaks and incorporating an activity such as a 10 minute walk outside, a few minutes of breathwork or enjoying a quiet, well-made cup of tea, are all forms of self-care and when done regularly – they help to improve productivity. Business.com recommends that self-care is important to achieving greater productivity, workplace happiness and personal and professional success. All necessary contributing factors in a high performing team culture.
Why aren’t we practicing self-care more often?
The truth is, most of the time just we don’t prioritise it, so we forget. Which is why it’s so important to schedule it in! Afterall, we schedule, meetings, dinners with friends, haircuts and training sessions, why don’t we proactively schedule in self-care? We reason with ourselves that we don’t have the time, or we’ve been feeling pretty good lately so we don’t take the time to step aside or go outside. And each time we buy into that, it’s at our own emotional and mental peril. As I’m sure you’ve seen the memes of the charging iPhones and cars running low on petrol – it’s important to ‘top ourselves up’ regularly if we want to perform at our best.
Self-care and productivity
In order to get a consistently good level of performance we need to look after ourselves emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. Maintaining a level of equilibrium between these 4 factors is a crucial foundation for high performance and consistent results. When we perform well and reach our objectives it improves our level of confidence and adds currency into our ‘Bank of Self-Belief’. Multiplying this currency enables us to continually reinvest in ourselves – because we have experienced and felt the benefit. We can be a little bolder in our next project, perhaps a little riskier in our approach, maybe even a little braver in starting something new when we feel as though we don’t have it altogether, yet. Self-care is an investment in your productivity, performance, results and growth. Essentially It’s nurturing our mindset. And let’s be honest, mindset is about 90% of anything. When practiced regularly and with a clear intention (and everyone’s is different), self-care and self-compassion can support your career.
Self-care tells the people around you that you care about them
I read the heading above a few months and it immediately resonated with me. When you take some time, and be nicer to yourself – invest in a little brain break; you come back with a positive and resilient mindset. Your communication is clearer, your presence is felt for the right reasons and you have a little more in the tank to give to others and to your work. You’re essentially someone other people like to be around. When you can feel yourself losing your grip on the wording in a proposal or developing a headache for looking at a spreadsheet for too long, chances that without some intentional self-care, you could be unconsciously harsh in a response or prickly to be around because you’re frustrated, tired or just need a little decompression. When you proactively schedule in your self-care practice you are communicating a powerful message to the people around you. The extended benefits of this are that those around you will eventually start to model what you’re doing too, self-care will become in the norm in your team and (hopefully) your workplace.
Establishing your self-care practice
This is easier than you may think. Afterall the majority of barriers to why we don’t have a regular self-care practice are a result of bargaining and stories we’ve made up in our minds.
- First start with your intention – what do you want to get out of your self-care practice? What do you want your practice to provide for you or enable you to do.
- Second, tell a friend or an accountability buddy that you’re starting a regular practice of self-care and why, let them know how often you intend to practice (and for how long) and if you have an idea, also let them know what activities you’ll be doing.
- Third, if you’re a people leader, tell your team. Share with them that you will be (insert the blank) in order to (insert the blank) and you hope they can give you the gift of regular time you need.
- Fourth, schedule it into your calendar and make sure you give yourself a couple of alerts to remind yourself that it’s coming up and you can prepare yourself mentally as well as remind anyone you need to that you may be unavailable for 15-30 or 45 minutes depending on what you need.
- Fifth, do it. Actually practice self-care, be compassionate to yourself when you start as you’ll most likely be feeling a sense of guilt for not doing something else that’s work related. Self-compassion and some deep breathing if you’re feeling anxious will help you to honour your practice.
I’d love to hear about your self-care practice or how you’re starting yours. You can email me at liz@empoweredleader.com.au