Donna: Self care is something that's so often gets overlooked and neglected and so in today's podcast, I want to draw some attention to this area because for your business to really soar, you must also honour yourself and create habits for self care. Why? Because if you don't, eventually the wheels are going to fall off.
It's unsustainable to work all the time. It's unsustainable to carry the heavy load of business and the heavy load of family responsibilities all the time. That's why self care is so important.
It's been a while since I recorded a podcast about self care and when I think about it, it's really overdue that I talk about this. I've created habits for self-care within my lifestyle, and I hope that you have too, but perhaps for you it is really overdue.
Maybe it's been a while since you took some self-care and if that's true for you, then this right here, this podcast is your reminder.
Self care done thoughtfully and with intention for caring for yourself in order to increase happiness and focus and stability and feelings of gratitude and joy and peace and self care. All of that is so, so, so helpful. Self-care is important because in the fast paced life in the world that we live, with such high demands, self care can be a way for you to reclaim your power, to recalibrate your body and your mind and also to harness your energy so that you can make intentional decisions in your life.
Self-care will really help you to decrease your anxiety and gain fulfilment and it helps for you to be happy, but often when life gets busy, self-care is the first thing to go, am I right? And so, without taking a break we pushed through into the next week, which then turns into two weeks, which then becomes a month and then two months becomes three and so on and so on.
And before we know it, we're totally exhausted. In the past, when I used to do that, my patients would become super thin throwing a dash of PMS and like look out, it was an absolute recipe for a hot mess, that I'm sure I'm not alone in that, right? That I do believe now that self-care needs to be treated like a responsibility, which is an equal responsibility.
When comparing it to parenting and business responsibilities and I believe that we need to change the mindset, that self-care is a luxury and instead respect it as a necessity. It doesn't have to be like massages or day spas or lazy cocktails by the pool bar. Doesn't have to be those really luxury things.
It could also be a whole range of other things too.
Which I'm going to talk about as we go through this podcast. When I teach the Ready To Rise program, we have a whole module around this. I teach the five areas of self care, that means: physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social.
But implementing those five areas and transforming the way that you feel, it will also increase your energy levels and it really does. It absolutely has a knock on effect to your family and to the success of your business, as well as your health. So what I've done is, I've picked a few things out of the Ready To Rise program to really get you started.
And there are three things that I think you can do straight away that will help you to level up your self care, maybe already do a couple of these but I want you to really think about, how you could improve what you do, if you already practice self care or if this is something that you've really neglected for awhile, this is your reminder.
This is your invitation to change that for yourself. So my first one is to create self care rituals, regardless of your culture, human beings have always been bound by rituals. When you think about it, birthdays, memorials, celebrations, it's really ingrained in us as human beings.
Pretty much from the beginning of time and what I love about rituals, is that it's a beautiful way for you to honour yourself on a daily basis with self care. So what I'd invite you to do is create a morning ritual for yourself, something you do every single day. Beside your bed, you could have a deck of affirmation cards and you could draw one out and read it.
And just pause for a moment. Just pause with that thought, maybe take a couple of stretches, hop up, pour yourself a cup of tea and maybe spend just a few minutes. Dot pointing down a few things that you're grateful for. That's a really great morning ritual that will set you up for the day ahead.
On the other end of the day, a bedtime rituals are really great way to work some self-care into what you do.
It helps for a really rested sleep as well, which is an extra bonus. Usually my bedtime ritual was start with a sleeping juicing herbal tea, that I just get from the supermarket and I turn on my bedside lamp, I put some oil in my diffuser, sometimes a little bit on my pillow, and I like to brain dump all of my thoughts into a notepad.
That way, I'm not going to be thinking about those things as I go to bed and this is something that I have been working on for a few years now and it's really been effective for me in that I used to lay awake at night with all of the things buzzing through my head, but when I actually brain dumped that into a notebook before I go to bed, it's almost like my brain knows, well, I've already got that noted down.
I don't have to keep bringing that up so that she remembers, right? So that's a really good tip that has always helped me from a sleep perspective and then once I've done all those things and I'm feeling pretty good, the room feels nice, right? With my bedside lamp on and the oils and it's all feeling pretty good.
I will give myself 20 minutes or so to read a novel and I tend not to read business books at that time. I prefer to read something that's just kind of really light a fiction novel and then if I really am still feeling quite heightened, I guess. I'll do some box breathing and maybe even put meditation in my ears to help me kind of just really chill out.
And the third kind of ritual, which you might be interested in trying is a beauty ritual. This is where you take your time and enjoy cleaning your face, moisturizing your skin. Maybe you might take some extra time to brush your hair, maybe even have a bath.
I often don't take baths because I don't know. I just kind of get bored sitting in bath. I'll admit. Um, but you know, in taking those moments, when you're going to wash your face anyway and you're going to brush your hair anyway, but do it in a mindful way and it's not about vanity it's about honoring. The beautiful skin that you live in the hair that you have, the body that you have and appreciating it because we only get one.
So these self-care rituals are really about honoring who you are and treating it like an act of self-love and it needs to be treated as part of your inner culture. Just like we have rituals within our human culture of birthdays and celebrations and those kinds of things, treated as part of your inner culture.
So that's number one, number two is boundaries. So you might be thinking, well, how is the boundary of self care? Well aligned that you draw for yourself as to what you will and what you won't accept in life, be that physical or emotional or spiritual is a great way for you to protect your energy and it is a form of self care.
So you can identify your needs and your expectations so that then you can create healthy boundaries and I want you to think of that sliding doors movie, that analogy where if you say yes to one thing, you're also saying no to something else and the reason that I bring this up is because particularly as business owners, we're always looking for opportunities.
And sometimes those opportunities come to us and it's about going, okay. Yes, it's a great opportunity. But if I say yes to that, does that mean, I'm also saying no to something else that potentially is more important or more valuable to me.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean another business opportunity that you're saying no to, but it could be an opportunity to spend time with your family. If the opportunity that you're saying yes to, involves working extra hours that you wouldn't normally do. So in saying yes to helping a client after your normal working hours, does that mean saying no to putting your kids to bed? And is that okay with you?
So it's about understanding what your needs and what your expectations are for yourself in understanding what you're saying yes and no to.
The other part of that is actually learning how to say no. Only you can enforce your boundaries, right? It's people who truly respect you, will understand that you have boundaries and they'll know that your boundaries are coming from a place of self on and self-respect. So if they can't see it that way, if they don't respect your boundaries, then it's giving you an indication that they either haven't done their own personal development work and therefore they don't see the importance of boundaries or they don't respect you, your time or your value system.
In which case saying no, should be so much easier to those types of people and the other thing in setting boundaries can be as simple as setting office hours and not responding to business-related messages or emails after a particular time that you have chosen for yourself and perhaps not on weekends, if your business does not thrive on weekend hours.
So saying no to requests for, when people are asking you for like delayed payment options or extra discounts saying no to late appointments, all of those things are part of your value set and your boundaries and only you can decide what those are, but also only you can actually draw the line in the sand and enforce your own boundary.
My third one here for self care is about creating. So as entrepreneurs, we need to unlock our creative ideas and we also need to be thinking outside the box all the time for what we do, right? That's how we stay at the top of our game. When we create in ways like painting or drawing, maybe vision boarding, singing, writing, reading, listening to music, maybe cracking out a few dance moves, all of these things, uh, proven to release stress.
It's proven to expand our abilities and our imagination. They are all a form of communication in some way, shape or form and it's a release of good endorphins. It's playful, it's joyful, it's light. Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge and so I want to invite you to open your imagination and maybe get creative with that.
And if you're not a creative person, like if you're not into painting and drawing and all that kind of stuff. That's okay. It could be listening just to some music that can really get the brain firing, but as I said, it's also more importantly about relieving that stress, releasing some endorphins and having some playful, joyful, light things in our world as well.
It's almost the end of this financial year. Are you ready to make this your best year in business? Are you ready to change the way your business operates so that you can run your business rather than it running you? And are you ready to get more of a work-life blend between your business, family, time and time for yourself to rest and recharge?
Listen, I know what it's like to be spinning your wheels and working when they sleep and feeling like you're really not getting anywhere and I also know the feeling of mom guilt an exhaustion that makes you question if it's all worth it. What I also know is that it doesn't have to be that way.
So if you have the passion and determination to take your business to the next level, without burning out and you want to make this your best year, the one that really tips the record, then you need my framework and the Ready To Rise program will help you from feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and burnt out to actually feeling energized in spot and ready to grow your business in balance, in a beautiful work-life blend with your family's needs and your own self care.
You just need to take the leap, you need to take action and get started. So what I want you to do is sign up for the Ready To Rise program before the doors close on Tuesday, the 7th of June at 7:00 PM. Do it now, before you forget.
Go to donnahann.com/course
Don't let another year go by, get off that hamster wheel and start to reshape your business into one that you absolutely love.
Okay, so let's recap. There are five areas of self care: physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual and I picked three things that you could do straight away to start getting more self-care into your daily lifestyle. I asked you to consider some daily self-care rituals. We talked about setting some boundaries, some really clear boundaries and holding them and also creating space for unlocking our creativity.
But implementing those five areas of self care: physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual, and transforming the way that you feel and increasing your energy levels by doing those things, it will have a direct knock on effect to your family and the success of your business and really importantly, your health.
There's a few other things that you can do, of course. Like moving your body, meditating, manifesting, nourishing your body, that's a big one, right? We need to treat our body like a high-performance vehicle and give it what it needs. Because as an entrepreneur, we are in high performance mode a lot of the times, so we need to nourish our body and our other things that can be really helpful is detoxing from social media, spending time with your friends, taking a nap in that from time to time.
Practicing self care will ensure that you will cope when challenges come up, which inevitably they absolutely will. I can guarantee you of that, when we're not running on empty. What happens is we can respond to those challenges rather than react to them and there's a big difference there.
Also from a practical point of view, self care is a necessary thing that we should be doing, because if you're not the best version of yourself, not only do you suffer, but your family don't get the best version of you either and when you're not running on all cylinders and you haven't taken care of yourself and your business, everything will suffer.
So if you want to show up for your customers with consistency, in providing the best possible level of service, how can you do that? If you're exhausted and running on empty all the time, how can you show up with patience and understanding and so much love as a parent? If you're running on empty and you're always feeling exhausted and the same goes for your relationship with your partner, with your friends, right? And most importantly, it's the relationship that we have with ourself.
In valuing ourselves enough to make self-care a priority. It's a necessity and this is why, what I teach is not just business education. This is why I've got this holistic approach to supporting women in business. That also includes self care because you can't have success without self care.
So I want to really invite you to introduce some new habits of self care that you can then sustain the long journey of business ownership and not be a flash in the pan or not burn out early.
If you want your future self to feel fulfilled and energized and inspired, it's a mindset shift and it's a choice. It's a choice to take action, to learn and then implement what you've learned into your life and into your business regularly. It's a choice that you can either choose to make a change or you can choose to do what you're already doing and in 12 months time, five years time, it'll be exactly the same. You'll still be on the path to burnout. You'll still be feeling exhausted. You'll still be feeling resentful to different areas of your life.
So I want to challenge you. I want you to make a list I'm like who doesn't love a list, right? Write all the things that make you feel good, it could be as simple as mindfully drinking an entire cup of coffee or tea before it goes cold every day without being interrupted, it might just be playing some music in the morning to feel uplifted and energized, to start the day or music in the shower, go and get yourself one of those cheap little waterproof speakers that have the suction cups.
Stick it on the side of the shower, sing your head off in the morning. That's beautiful for getting vibrations, moving through your body, which will clear your chakras and make you feel really good. Maybe it's a walk on the beach. Maybe it's popping your nose in a book, whatever works for you.
I want you to go and make that list and then I want you to pick one thing and I want you to do it. That's it for me? Go and love yourself up with some self-care and take care of you.
