Extreme Self-Care: A Must-Have Mindset

In the latest volume of my eZine, Practice Builder, I talked about how important it is to work on the relationships that support you in your business building efforts.

Running a business can be a lonely place and you need to have as much support as possible. But it takes time and effort to sustain these relationships, and you can’t just expect people to know what you are going through – and to know how they can support you – if you don’t tell them!

And as you get more successful, so the pressure grows. Because now you need to spend time on so many different areas of your life. You will probably be seeing more clients; you will need to spend more time on the actual business of running your practice; and you also have people desperate for your time and attention.

So how do you manage all these pressures?

The last thing you want to do is run yourself into the ground and have a nervous breakdown.

Well, the answer is: look after yourself!

I love the expression “extreme self-care” because it seems to sum up the necessary frame of mind for true success. You HAVE to look after yourself, or you’ll soon notice cracks appearing in your foundations. One of the biggest parts of building a highly successful business is the mindset change necessary to take you from where you are now to where you want to be. You can’t just sit back and imagine success, waiting for the genie to appear and grant you three wishes. You have to take control and extreme self-care is one of the best ways I know to keep your foundations solid and crack-free.

Extreme self-care comes in a variety of forms. Think of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of your life – do you take for granted that ALL of these pieces of you need care? Diving for the red wine after a hard day’s work might be okay occasionally, but as a rule of thumb it ain’t going to work out well in the long run. Likewise, thinking only about your business and never giving your mind a break can have the same tiring effect.

And don’t even THINK about not taking holidays away from your business. The approach of “I have SO many patients, I can’t even CONCEIVE taking time off” will not serve you well in the long run.

One of the funniest things about this outlook is that as health practitioners, we should know all the risks of not looking after oneself and yet when it comes to applying it in our own lives, we just don’t see it as important. In fact, I have had quite a few clients who fall into the trap of telling themselves “it will only be for the next few weeks and then I will take a break.” And sure enough the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years.

So at the risk of teaching you all to suck eggs, let’s start practicing some extreme self-care ourselves, eh? Look at your diet and exercise and make changes if necessary. Take some time to switch off from the day job and look at getting away from it completely for at least a few weeks every year.

I also recommend some form of mindfulness practice. Not everyone is going to sit in the lotus position and chant for an hour each day, but there will be something you can do to allow yourself some time for personal reflection.

Write in a journal, perhaps recite a simple mantra each day, or even just give yourself a few minutes to think without ANY distractions – that’s right, TV off, music off, partner banished to another room. These actions give you dedicated time for personal reflection and this is where your growth takes place.

Funny enough for all the business development actions you are taking, the biggest differences are made in the times where NOTHING is going on.

So why not commit to practicing some extreme self-care yourself – and let me know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post.

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