Everyone else is more important than me
Self care as a leadership discipline
These words were spoken to me by an attorney, mother, and wife after I asked her how she takes care of herself with her herculean workload–two teenage boys, a solo law practice with five active court cases and ten motions to file that very day, then dinner, research, and the normal life stuff of running a household.
How many of us have said that or had that thought? And how has it guided us in our professional and personal lives? After a while, did we actually believe it? It is too easy to check all the boxes on our to do list, then get to the end of the day to go to the gym or have a glass of whiskey with a friend or loved one only to realize it’s too late: you’re too tired, or they are already asleep, or the gym is closed. We’re all human and this kind of frustration can breed resentment, feed burnout, or just plain effect performance.
The trouble with putting everyone else first is that there is always someone else–but there’s only one you.
What happens when the only one you that you are collapses, or becomes so bitter and hollow you can’t even help yourself? Or just runs out of steam? It happens, all too often it happens.
If you have ever flown on a commercial airliner, you have heard this part of the spiel: “during the unlikely event of a sudden change in pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling.” What do the experts tell you to do? Put your mask on first, then assist anyone around you that needs it, like a child or someone with limited mobility. Because if you are running around slapping everyone else’s mask on their face before you put yours on, you will run out of oxygen quick. A cliche to be sure, but one that carries with it a great truth. Taking care of ourselves is taking care of others.
In fact, I believe that self care is a leadership discipline, just as communication or vision is. It is vital to our development as leaders—and our survival as humans.
A wellness routine in our daily lives keeps us healthy and able to help when others need it–but we have to prioritize it, because, after all, “everyone else is more important than me”. Too often, we prioritize others over our own self-care and maintenance. Maybe the other things that get in the way are too important, or we are too tired, or we don’t have enough time. Maybe we feel selfish for taking some “me time” even if we know it will edify us for the days to come. But can you honestly say that you regret taking some time to relax and recover from the day to day?
I am not advocating for a selfish attitude or a “get out of obligation free card”, far from it, I am advocating for those of us who live to help others to take a hard look at how we treat ourselves and ask: “what if my best friend did the same thing? How would I counsel my brother/sister/mother/father/roommate/significant other if I saw them doing the same thing to themselves—denying their needs in order to respond to the needs of others?
Be honest–you would tell someone you love to find some time for themselves to just be. Sleep, breathe, eat, do something they love–golf, tennis, ride their bike. Something just for them so that they don’t pass out while slapping masks on everyone else on the plane. I’ll bet if you’re reading this you know someone that this happened to—maybe even yourself! That’s okay, leaders–especially the good ones—are susceptible to burning out while looking after everyone else. Whether everyone else is on their team, or in their family, goes to their school, or attends their house of worship—or is all of the above, burnout is real.
Did this happen to you? Did your passion to serve the folks in your life and your compassion for others lead to you to being worn out, burned out, used up? It is an issue that is in much of the literature out there with regard to business, management, leadership, parenting. If you’re a leader and you’re doing it right, you simply must put others first, you must put your organization first. After all, that’s what leadership is, right? It comes with the territory. And it can wear on the strongest and most patient. But that’s the job, that’s one of the big reasons you were picked to be a leader, I’d wager. You’re a team player, a person willing to make the necessary sacrifices in order to lift up the whole team.
Add a family, relationships, volunteer work, and it’s easy to see where your good intentions and kind heart got worn out from overuse.
I know this because it happened to me. My career, family, church, it all got to the point that I had nothing left to give. And the greatest part of the equation was the leadership I took on at work. I was so focused on leading other people I hardly looked to myself. I was so focused on my career, I hardly noticed my family. And it showed. It showed in my marriage, in my parenting, in me not taking care of myself. And I resented all those other things that had previously given me joy. It took a long time to recover. In many ways I still am as is my family and those closest to me, but there is hope, we can strike a proper balance between the demands of work and leadership and our own need for space and quiet and self care.
It starts with taking care of ourselves, or maintaining our own body, mind, and spirit in service to others, not instead of others. And, as leaders, it behooves us to make it a discipline, a regular practice that we do because it brings us joy and keeps us healthy and engaged, able to do the important things of life–not just work.
How about you? Serving others, being there for them–did you start to resent it? The sacrifices you made or are still making for “everyone else”--did they become a point of anguish for you? That wouldn’t be a hard place to find amongst all the professional and personal obligations we all carry on a daily basis. After all, we are human and have all the emotions—resentment comes up at times when we work for others. Maybe we don’t feel appreciated, recognized, or even seen for the things we do for others–it’s not hard to resent that!
The answer to this is boundaries. To respect your boundaries is to respect others’ boundaries. You will have nothing left if you are always giving so much of yourself—at work, at home, at church, in your community or school. Energy is a finite thing and eventually, if you don’t do anything to refill your tank, you will run out just as your car will run out of gas–no matter how kind or caring or tough you think you are.
You may even find yourself resenting being there for folks at work or at home. And if you are feeling resentful of the sacrifices you are making, know that those feelings are okay—they mean you’re human. And they are warning signs. Maybe you need to pull back a little to see where you need to re-establish some boundaries to protect yourself. It really is an unselfish act because in doing so, you are able to husband your resources of energy and time, even spirit, in order to better allocate them to the folks who need you—and one of those folks is you. Because if you don’t look after yourself, who will?
Difficult though it may be to find time to work into your already busy schedule, some time to yourself is vital. Some practices I find helpful are: Meditation, prayer, and movement of some kind. It could be as easy as walking my dog or as intense as a good run. Some kind of movement to loosen up and get the blood flowing is important. As is sitting in silence or meditation if you're more comfortable with that–it helps me feel what’s going on in my body as well as my mind and spirit. Some time in prayer helps me remember that there is so much more to life than the physical, material reality in which we swim. The key for me is slowing down and just being. I have learned over the years to not react, rather to respond–that everything is not an emergency.
After we finished talking and my new lawyer friend had to get started on her busy day, I asked her to do one thing for me and that was: take a minute for herself.
I encourage you to do the same thing—take 60 seconds, time it with your phone, do it just for you, whatever it is you want to do-breathe, sit, read, walk outside, sip your coffee. You might be surprised at the results.