How to Be Kind to Yourself (and Why)

photo courtesy of Maxwell GS

I had a big fancy post planned for today. But when I sat down to write it, I realized I wanted to say something simple:

Be kind to yourself.

It’s so easy in the craziness of life to lose track of how we treat ourselves. There are other people to take care of, a zillion things to attend to, place after place to be. We put all thoughts of ourselves aside. We feel we are being as generous as we can be, giving ourselves away to whatever comes next.

We plan our days to the max, stuff our schedules to the gills. And then, when we find ourselves with some spare moments, we hoard these precious seconds for our own projects. We tell ourselves, “I will get X, Y, and Z done tonight!”

And if everything we promise we’ll do gets done, then yay! We are awesome! We got so much accomplished!

But what happens when…

You sit down to write a chapter of your novel but find your energy is so low you can hardly think? You planned to work on your business idea but your thoughts are pulled in other directions? You’ve been looking forward to finally clearing out your inbox all week but when the moment arrives, all you want to do is curl up with some tea and a book?

What if neither X, nor Y, nor even Z gets done?

Have you failed yourself? Are you weak-willed? Should you beat yourself up because you can’t follow through? Should you push yourself harder next time to make sure it all gets done?

Um. No. Please don’t.

You are human. You can only do so much.

In fact, how about this: if you squeeze every last drop of energy out, force yourself to focus, tie yourself to your desk and get to work — what if that is actually failure? What if not recognizing your own needs, not allowing yourself to change plans, beating yourself up and criticizing yourself for not doing everything you intended to do is the wrong approach? What if the best thing you can do for yourself isn’t to forge ahead, but to take a break?

Some days you will have what it takes to tackle those projects of yours. At times like those, maybe being kind to yourself means forging ahead and earning that feeling of accomplishment.

But sometimes you need to back off. We all need time to recharge. What good are you to others if you burn yourself out over and over? What good are you to yourself?

Be kind to yourself. In the long run, it’s the surer, sweeter path.

And By the Way…

If you missed it, I announced the upcoming release of my free ebook, How to Be Remakeable, on Tuesday. Three more days to sign up for the mailing list if you’d like access to the accompanying worksheets and early access to the ebook!

Also, I’ve created images of the five principles of remakeability I cover in How to Be Remakeable. I’ll be releasing one each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between now and the ebook’s public release on October 9. The first one goes out today! Follow along on Facebook and/or Pinterest if you don’t want to miss them!

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