#113 - Self-Care for High-Achievers
Summary
When I say "self-care" what do you think of? How do you feel about that?
Do you grimace, thinking "oh dear God, another item on my to-do list"? Do you catch yourself thinking, "um...I don't need this! I'm already a badass"?
I get it. I used to think of weight loss, pant sizes, and all that physical shit when people talked about self-care.
But what if I were to tell you that there are some fundamental misconceptions not only about what self-care is, its benefits, and why you - yes, you - as a high-achiever need it in your life?
Before I tell you what this episode is, let me tell you what it isn't. It isn't me listing off all the self-care activities you "should" do. I don't know you and I don't know your life. So that would be BS anyway. It also isn't an episode where I belabor you on why you need self-care in your life. No, this episode is something different.
In today's podcast, I'm going to give you 4 tips about self-care as a high-achiever. These 4 tips are meant to help you change your mindset around and your approach toward self-care.
For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, if you have any questions or want to connect, head on over to @coachellyn on Instagram.
ACTION STEPS:
Misconceptions about self-care
It’s not about pampering yourself. It’s about your basic needs to help you function at your highest level.
It’s not just about physical self-care. It includes your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, and social life.
Tip #1: Change your perspective. Self-care isn’t another to-do list item, which a lot of us tend to approach it as. It’s the foundation that makes everything else on the to-do list easier.
Tip #2: It’s about what you need to STOP doing as much as (if not MORE) than what you need to START doing.
Tip #3: Start Simple. Don’t try to overhaul your whole life from the get-go. Start with 1 or 2 simple, easy to implement habits and build from there.
Tip #4: Try to avoid treating self-care as another goal. Self-care isn’t a destination or something you check off the list. My goal for you? Is that it becomes a part of your lifestyle. It becomes something “you just do” as a part of your life as opposed to things you check off your to-do list.
RESOURCES IN THIS EPISODE:
Learn More About Our “Building Boundaries: Protect Your Productivity” Workshop on August 27th
Previous Episodes:
Ep 107: “AIRPLANE MENTALITY” - click here
transcript
Hey, Hey, Hey, And welcome back to take back your damn life podcast friend. I am so excited that you're here. I'm so excited that you're here today for this topic. Which actually I was reflecting on it and I'm not a hundred percent sure that I've ever talked about it before. If I have, I will have to dig back through the last hundred and however many episodes of this podcast to see if I have, but we are talking about self-care today and we're particularly talking about some tips for high achievers and things that high achievers need to keep in mind when it comes to their self-care.
(01:43):
This is huge. This is so important. And it's amazing to me that it hasn't necessarily been something that I've emphasized or talked about on the podcast, because if you follow me on Instagram at all, which you totally should, I'm @coachelly. Instagram is my jam. I love it. But if you follow me on Instagram at all, you know, that literally on the daily I do a pre-workout lip sync dance party. And then I get in my workout. Self-care is something that it really started my journey actually as a coach. And it is so important. It is such an integrated part of my life so much so that it's really built into my intuitive achievement philosophy, which if you haven't heard me talk about this philosophy before, it really is something that combines personal growth, mindfulness of awareness, as well as health, productivity, self-care...all of that jazz in with my coaching methodology. So it is huge. It is something that is so important to me. And I'm really wanting to give you guys some tips today for how you, as a high achiever can approach this.
(02:48):
But before we get into those tips, I want to share something really, really freaking important with you and really freaking exciting that is happening at the end of August. I am actually doing my first ever virtual workshop collaboration. I am collaborating with a good friend, a former client and a brand new coach, Nicole Hudson for a virtual boundaries workshop, where we are going to lay out to you, not only what boundaries are, if you aren't familiar, but the boundaries that you really need as a high achiever, especially. And this is really what kind of what the launching point for this idea for this virtual boundaries workshop, especially if you're somebody who is still working from home, and you're really, really struggling to find that balance. Maybe you don't even have any sort of a balance for where work ends and the rest of your life begins. If you feel like there's no separation and you were just drowning in work, then my friends, you need some boundaries. And that is exactly what we're going to talk you through.
(03:49):
Not only what boundaries are, but what are the boundaries that you need in your life, how to set them and also how to communicate them to the other people that these boundaries might affect. So it's going to really lay out the whole process for you. So you will leave the workshop, knowing what your new boundaries are, how to communicate them to say your boss or your family, or whatever, as well as a really, really simple strategy that you can use to create and implement other boundaries throughout the rest of your life. It's going to be a three hour virtual workshop. It's going to be incredibly high touch. We're keeping it really, really small so that we're going to have opportunities throughout the workshop for Q and a for, you know, intensive exercises for us to give you feedback for you to get like a hands-on experience with the two of us to really get so much out of it.
(04:38):
It is a great opportunity if you've ever thought about reaching out and working with me, but are a little hesitant on the pricing aspect. It is a great opportunity to get in, to get that three hours worth a very intensive and personalized coaching, but at a much lower cost. So definitely get in on that. The workshop is on August 27th, but early bird pricing actually ends on the 13th. So as this is launching, there's only a couple more days for you to be able to get in on that early bird pricing, which is $99 for the entire three hour virtual experience. Also, if you're kind of wanting to get on it on a little bit cheaper, I also have five discount codes that I will be giving out. Um, so reach out to me, head on over to @coachellyn on Instagram, shoot me a DM and let's chat about it if this is something that you feel like you want to get in on.
(05:27):
But with that, I want to make sure you knew about the workshop, but now that you know, let's get in to these tips, we're talking self-care for high achievers. Now, before we dive into the tips part of this, I really just want you to think about what is self-care really defining what that is, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions about self care. It's not about pampering yourself. A lot of people, you know, they'll say hashtag self care. When they take themselves out to a massage or, you know, two hour bubble bath or whatever, it's really not pampering yourself. I really think of self-care as your basic needs. Those basic needs that allow you as a high achiever to function at your highest level, your highest potential, best version of yourself.
(06:10):
So many of us are driven by being the best, you know, but sometimes whether it's the best in our circle or a peer group or the best version of ourselves, it doesn't really matter. Self-care enables us to be that if you don't have good foundational self-care, you're not going to be able to be the best, whether it's the best you or the best person in your peer group, you're not going to be able to get there. You know, my why is all about to make myself proud and I'm not making myself proud if I'm not at my best. So that's why this self care component is so important to me, because it enables me to do that. Another big misconception about self-care is that it's not just about physical self-care, that is absolutely a big part of self care, but there's also mental and emotional self care.
(06:57):
That's a big component as well. You can be physically very fit and emotionally not a hundred percent where you want to be. Maybe you don't handle stress. Well, maybe you are constantly, you know, struggling with anger and frustration, your mental and emotional component of your self-care might not be there. There's also a spiritual component, which, you know, might vary of how big of a component that is depending on how spiritual of a person you are. But there is a spiritual component I meditate every day. I consider that to be an aspect of my spiritual self-care because it really allows me to tap into my intuition and become more self-aware. And that's kind of how I personally approach spirituality. There's also social self-care, which I'm sure we're all hyper aware of in quarantine. What would the fact that our social component has kind of been ripped out of our lives in a lot of ways?
(07:44):
So social self-care is something to consider, but there's also the financial self-care as well as some other smaller aspects. But I would say those are the core ones, the physical, the mental, emotional, the spiritual, social, and financial. Those are all components of self-care. And so often we have like this tunnel vision focus on the physical component, where we know it's so much more than that, and you can be physically very healthy and yeah, you'll have energy and vitality, but there's all these other parts of our self care that are really important enough to have good financial health. You have to have a good social health. You have to have good spiritual and emotional health. All of those pieces fit together. When we're talking about self-care here. Now, before I dive into these tips, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you as a high achiever, you need to be doing this activity, this activity, and this activity, anybody who tells you that, I frankly think it's because they don't know your life. They don't know your preferences and them sitting there trying to tell you what you should or should not do. It's just BS. So these tips are going to be very, very general, but I think they're really, really important things to consider. If you are somebody who identified as a high achiever, a go getter, someone who's kind of type a, and is really goal driven. These are going to be so stinking important for you to just kind of maybe even change your mindset around self care and how you've been approaching it because, you know, maybe you've been approaching it in a way that's really not serving you.
(09:09):
So I want to give you these four tips here to really help you kind of work through that and approach. Self-care a little bit differently. I think it's important for us high achiever. So first tip here, I'm actually going to do them a little bit out of order than I originally intended.
(09:24):
So first tip is actually going to be to change your perspective around self-care. And what I mean by that is this. I want you to get to a point where self care activities are things that you quote, unquote, just do. They're just a part of your life. They become a part of your high achieving lifestyle. And I think this is a really, really important change in perspective because how many of us right now are approaching self-care as another to-do list item that we need to pack in. That might even be one of the reasons why we're a little resistant to the notion of self-care because it just feels like another item on the to-do list. That's where I really encourage you to change your perspective. And that's why I kind of opted on the fly to start with this as tip number one here, because it's a huge, huge change in perspective that it's something you just want to make a part of your lifestyle, as opposed to another part of your to-do list.
(10:19):
I don't even think of my workout or my meditation or journaling or reading. I don't even think of them as to do list items anymore. I think I'm as daily habit, I think as part of my morning routine every morning, they're just a part of my lifestyle. And the reason why it's so important is because it's the foundation that makes everything else on your to-do list, easier. Self-care, isn't a to-do list item. It's something that makes everything else on your to-do list. Easier. I wanted to repeat that because I think it's really, really important because if you think about it really, really deeply, if you're more energized, if you have a higher level of vitality, all of which comes from having good, self-care, you'll have better focus and you'll be able to do things more quickly, you'll be able to become more productive. So in a lot of ways, if we just focus on having a lifestyle that cultivates and focuses on self care, that's going to enable us as high achievers to be more productive versions of ourselves.
(11:21):
And as we mentioned before, to be that best version of ourself. So change your perspective. That's tip number one is to change your perspective. And stop thinking about self-care is another to-do list item, and start thinking about it as a fundamental and foundational aspects of your lifestyle to enable you to be a better high achiever, or at least the less burned out high achiever in a lot of ways, because that's really what self-care gives us.
(11:46):
Now, let's look at tip number two, tip number two is also really, really important kind of mindset shift. And what this tip is at its core is realizing that self care is as much about what you need to start doing as you, what you need to stop doing. In fact, so much of it might actually be what you need to stop doing. You know, we talked about defining self care earlier, and that it's not just physical self-care, it's also mental and emotional and social self care.
(12:17):
So yeah, it's really easy to say, oh, for my physical self care, I need to start drinking more water and getting more sleep and moving my body more. You know, all of those are start doing activities, but physical self-care might also be about stopping, you know, having a couple glasses of wine every night, which I'm so guilty of. I'm literally drinking a glass of wine recording this podcast guilty as charged. Um, but maybe it's about stop doing, stopping doing those things. Or maybe it's about stop staying up late every night, watching way too many episodes of Netflix from the social component. It might be about stop saying yes to everything, you know, start saying no, and stop saying, yes, those are kind of a couple together. But the point I'm trying to make here is that there are so many aspects of self care that are about what we need to stop doing.
(13:10):
And that's something that we as high achievers don't think enough about. Sometimes we're all for the Ooh goals, goals. These are some things that I need to start doing to achieve my goals. But what about the things that we need to stop doing? That'd be an interesting thing to actually just incorporate into your goal achievement in general, but really here, I want to focus on self-care because so much of our self care could actually be about focusing on the things that we need to stop doing the work projects that we maybe need to stop taking on the social commitments that maybe we need to stop saying yes to, or the, you know, eating habits or sleeping habits that we need to stop doing because they're just not serving us. So that's tip number two is to start thinking about what you need to stop doing, as opposed to only focusing on what you need to start doing.
(13:59):
Now, tip number three. Oh, this is another one that I see a lot of high achievers do wrong. Start simple, please. For the love of God, do yourself a favor and start simple. I don't know if you know this. I mentioned it at the beginning of the episode, but I actually got my start in coaching in health and fitness. I was a beach body coach for a number of years and in a lot of ways still am I still am signed up. I still get discounts on the products because I love them. Um, but the biggest thing I would see people do wrong when they were starting in beach body and starting their fitness journey would, they've tried to do this massive overhaul on their entire life and what happened. They burned out because that is frankly unrealistic. And that's how so many of us approach our self-care. You know, I probably, when I was off all of these different aspects of self care, the physical, the mental, emotional, spiritual, et cetera, were you sitting there kind of making a little mental inventory of, okay.
(15:00):
Yeah. For my physical, I need to do this, this and this for my emotional. I want to start doing this, this and this for my financial. I want to start doing this and this and this. Did you catch yourself doing that in any capacity? Maybe it wasn't like that bad, but did you catch yourself doing that at all? Because that tends to be how us as high achievers are. We want to just tackle everything at once, go all in and do everything we can possibly do. I think of, but I'd also be like willing and willing to bet that you've probably done that before. Maybe not related to self care, but maybe related to another part of your life. And I'm going to be willing to bet that that probably crashed and burned. Maybe you were able to follow through on a few things, but ultimately that process, that approach, it burns you out.
(15:49):
Right? So start simple. My biggest recommendation to anybody when they were starting their fitness journey. But here we're talking about your self-care journey is to start with one or two simple habits and build from there. Start so simple. Start with things that you know, are going to be easy for you to achieve actually, and that might be counter-intuitive. But hear me out when I say it's important to start with the easy, because if you give yourself something easy to latch on to, it's going to help you build momentum and that momentum is going to carry you forward so that you can start adding more and more self-care habits on. So start, start with one or two simple, easy habits and build from there. That's tip number three.
(16:33):
And then last but not least tip number four again, which for high achievers. And that's why I'm so gearing this toward how high achievers tend to think. Cause I am you I'm right there with you try to avoid treating it as another goal, try to void treating yourself care as another goal. And I'm actually going to call myself out in a sense on this because I actually know made self-care one of my goals for this quarter. I'll call myself out on that, that I actually didn't do this. I like to think that I'm just approaching it as an intention, an area of focus that I have for this quarter, but in a lot of ways, I did make it as another goal. And the reason why I've kind of struggled with this is I'm a huge proponent of when you're setting physical goals, set those goals around capability, not around weight loss or inches lost or pant size is lost, but around a goal of capability, like doing a half marathon or being able to hike up a certain mountain or whatever.
(17:31):
That's one of the big ways that I personally like to approach physical goals, but how I want us to start thinking about self-care isn't just as another goal. I kind of already said this in tip number one, but it's about creating a lifestyle of self care that, and empowers you the rest of your life, as opposed to thinking of it as some sort of destination that you're going to arrive at some sort of goal that you're going to check off of your goals list or your to-do list. That's the mindset shift. I would really, really encourage you with a high achiever to make. Because again, this is something that is going to serve as the foundation for helping make you the best version of yourself. The version of yourself that is going to be able to be the best and isn't going to lose themselves in it, who isn't going to be able to lose the rest of their life in it, because you're going to have that energy.
(18:30):
You're going to have that vitality. You're going to able to be more productive and therefore get more done so that you can have a life outside of work achieve more, but with less burnout, you know, kind of my little tagline mantra, if you will achieve more with less burnout, that's what self-care is going to enable you to do. So if you can shift that perspective, shift that mindset and approach it more as a lifestyle and not as another goal that you're going to check off the list. Eventually that is going to be a huge, huge mindset shift and a huge thing. That's going to empower you and move you forward for not just being a high achiever in your mentality and how you approach things, but to be at your highest potential as a highest high-achiever at your best self as a high achiever.
(19:16):
That's what self care is really going to give you. So to recap, and I usually much better about doing a recap as I go through the tips today. Tip number one was around changing your perspective approaching self-care not as another to-do list item, but as a foundational aspect of your lifestyle that is going to help make everything else easier. Tip number two, think about what you need to stop doing. Just as much as you think about what you need to start doing. Tip number three, start simple. Don't try to do a massive overhaul and tip number four, try to avoid treating this as just another goal as just another thing that you're going to hit an end point on just another destination. This is kind of a reiteration of tip number one in a lot of ways, but it's about creating that lifestyle for yourself.
(20:02):
And I think that's going to be huge for you as a high achiever and in making you a high achiever that doesn't just burn out and crash at the end of the day, but has enough energy and vitality to be able to live a great life outside of their goals and their career. That's what I wish for you. That's what I hope these couple little tips here allow you to do. And I hope you take these couple tips and carry them into whatever self-care habits you currently have to start creating that life where this just becomes an integrated part of it. That foundation that allows you to be your best. That's my goal here. That's why I want to share these couple of tips with you. I know this might've been a slightly different podcast episode than you were expecting, but again, I don't believe in just telling you, you should do this, this, this, and this to have good self care because that's not what this is about. This is about changing your relationship with self care, changing your perspective on it so that it just becomes something that supports you and allows you to be your best self. So that's my goal for you. That's why I want to share this. And with that all I've got for you this time. So I will talk to you next time.
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