Why Is Self-Care So Difficult

Resources and links mentioned:

Book Your 20-Minute Discovery Call

Assistants Who Self-Care Facebook Community 

Check out the video transcript:

If you struggle with taking care of yourself, you are not alone. Stay tuned for the two primary reasons why we as assistants tend to struggle with this, as well as my number one tip for helping you move past this and build integrity and trust with yourself. Assistants, if you would like more transformational strategies geared towards you, please subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when my weekly episodes go live. I'm Annie Croner of WholeAssistant.com, on today's episode of The Whole Assistant Show, I'm breaking down two reasons why we as assistants tend to struggle with taking care of ourselves, as well as what to do about it.

The first reason we tend to not take care of ourselves is due to perfectionism. We are detail-oriented. That's what makes us good assistants, but sometimes that detail-orientedness can cross over into perfectionism, and not in a good way, either. We tend to be all or nothing thinkers. We want to get healthy. We think that is good self-care. So we want to exercise, we want to eat right, we want to cut out sugar and white flour, and do all the things. And then when one piece of that doesn't happen, we either beat ourselves up or we give up on the plan entirely. So, we're not actually setting ourselves up for success by choosing one thing. We want to choose it all and try it all, and then when we fail, which is normal and natural and probably okay, given that we're trying to do everything all at once and make all the changes all at once, we don't take action from there. We just kind of give up.

And the second reason why we tend to fail or we tend to struggle with taking care of ourselves, is that we are out of integrity with ourselves. We have lost that relationship with ourselves. And so this makes sense too, because we put everyone else ahead of ourselves, often many of us do, and then we tend to not follow through on promises to ourselves. We tend to come last on our own priority list. And so, what that does is it kind of corrodes the trust that we have with ourselves, that we don't follow through on the action items for ourselves. We follow through for everybody else, but not for ourselves, and that erodes trust with ourselves. So of course it's going to be hard to take care of ourselves, especially when the going gets tough, and especially when we really need to take care of ourselves.

So I want to hear from you now. Do you struggle with either one of these two things? Do you put yourself lower on your priority list than you should? Or are you a perfectionist and want to try all the things, and then when it doesn't work out the way you think it should, you kind of give up on everything? Please leave a comment below, sharing your experience.

So how do we move past the all-or-nothing perfectionism thinking, and then how do we also build integrity with ourselves? Well, I've got an exercise for you all to do and try and report back, because I'd be very curious to know how it goes for you. It's called the one thing exercise. We are going to pick one good thing we're going to do for ourselves. One. And we're going to keep that promise to ourselves no matter what. Now, your brain is going to go crazy. It's going to freak out. It's going to tell you to do all the things, because we make one good decision for ourselves and it's like, "Well, but I can do this and this and this too." Just expect that and just know that this is not going to feel good at first.

I think oftentimes we think of self-care as having arrived there already, and we think how good it's going to be when we're actually in that running routine or when we're actually eating right. But we don't think of the in-between. We don't think of the setting up of boundaries with other people so that we can create time to go for that run. We don't think of how hard it's going to be to get our body into shape so that when we run it feels good and not like such a drudgery. So just know that it's not going to feel good at first, and that is okay. But when you start to follow through on that one thing, you start to build integrity with yourself. And you know you'll begin to trust yourself that when you make a promise to yourself, you're going to follow through on that promise because you're a person of your word. And we also need to be people of our word to ourselves as well. So this will help build integrity.

So I want you to choose one thing, one thing that you can focus on, and all the other things will come in. All the other perfectionism thoughts and all the other all-or-nothing thinking will come in. They certainly will. But I think we need to get comfortable with the discomfort of just managing that one thing and getting really good at that one thing. I was talking with a colleague recently. Her one thing was working out. And she wanted to work out every single day, come rain or shine, no matter what. It took her two and a half years to calm the chatter in her brain. Two and a half years. That's a long time. But she was finally able to do it, and she said her self-confidence soared because she had built this trust with herself. So just know that self-care does not always feel good. Sometimes it's just going to flat out feel like ass. It just will. But know that when you follow through, the rewards can be amazing. So pick one thing and report back. Email me at [email protected] and let me know how it goes for you.

If you would like help figuring out what your one thing is, or if you would like coaching around your brain and how it's freaking out when you have that one thing and everything else tries to weasel it's little way in there, and the perfectionism tries to get in there, and you are considering working with a coach and you're curious whether working with me as your coach is the right choice for you, please email me at [email protected] to set up your complimentary 20-minute discovery call. I'd love to meet with you. I'd love to hear your goals and your thoughts and your dreams. And then we can take it from there.

To continue this discussion and receive support from your fellow assistants and administrative professionals, please head on over to facebook.com/groups/WholeAssistant to join our assistants only community. If you like this episode, please let me know by hitting the like button below. Also, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with your fellow assistants and administrative professionals. And last but not least, if this episode has helped you in some way, I want to know about it, so please leave a comment below sharing how.

Get instant access to my free mini-masterclass, 3 Steps to Beautifully Banish Burnout.