PUTTING YOURSELF FIRST...

This may seem quite sexist but I fear it's true...women, especially mothers, always put everyone else first.  Especially their children.

We will do virtually anything for them (..no matter their age) and regularly go without so they can have. Who remembers dishing up dinner, to find one extra child at home and then taking some off your plate so that child had a full meal? We've all done it. Time after time.

And we don't begrudge it. We simply, and automatically, do it.


It's like making promises. We keep them (well the majority of us). Yes I will do that, yes I'll help then, yes I'll meet you there, yes yes yes. A promise to a friend or family member is something we can't and won't break. We live up to them.

So why is it so easy to break promises we make to ourselves?

Tomorrow I'll go to the early gym class....I'll start that art's diploma....I'll start searching for a new job....I'll start on that novel.

Yet these are the promises we break so easily.


In an aeroplane when there is a problem and the oxygen masks drop down, we are told to look after ourselves first...THEN and only then, do we look after others. It's a simple basic. If we don't look after ourselves, then we can't look after anybody else.

So why do we think we are not worth the same amount of effort and worth as other people?


I've heard so many people say that you have to book yourself in. Whether it's going to the gym, getting a massage, finding time to write. You pencil it in and make that appointment. And you don't break it. No matter what.

It does get difficult when life gets in the way. Especially this time of the year which seems to be on fast forward. But if you are serious about changing your job, taking up that hobby, going to the gym, or getting some of that novel written...you have to make the time for yourself.


And throw away the guilt.
Yes there will be twenty other things you SHOULD and COULD have been doing, but this right now is what you WANT to do.

Guilt is such a cumbersome beast. It follows us constantly, demanding to be noticed.


I'm hoping to change some bad habits and build some good habits. One of them is to take time for myself, my writing time. Yes I will write then...it's booked in. Okay, the time may have to change, even the day (some life events you can't alter no matter how hard you would like to) but taking that 30 minutes or and hour out of your life for something that matters to you does not make you a bad person.

In fact, over time, it will make you a better person.


Or at least I intend to find out and give it a go.

Vicki 

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