How often do you complain or brag that you’re “busy”? Do you have one of those popular planners or coffee mugs with the words “I Am Very Busy” printed on them? Do you like being busy? Do you think being busy demonstrates value and worth?
These are all questions I think we should ask ourselves. Busy is becoming a glorified term in our culture and I think we need to take a step back and think about why that is. In this age of technology people have the opportunity to make a living without leaving their bedrooms or dealing with people face-to-face, they can pay all their bills with a unique idea that wasn’t available to them ten years ago. We’re constantly praising people for being brave enough to start their own business. We’re in awe of the way people make money by being innovative and exchanging their value for money instead of their time. It’s gotten to the point where some people look down on those who don’t have their own businesses or at least the desire to have one.
We’ve associated being busy with being productive, professional, successful, and happy. We assume if your schedule is packed to the gills every day that you’re living the dream.
The reality is not everyone has the dream of running their own business and there’s nothing wrong with that. The reality is some people don’t want to be busy all the time, whether they’re working for someone else or themselves. There is nothing wrong with deciding you’d rather work 9-5 at a job you enjoy and know you can depend on a steady paycheck so you don’t spend your precious brain power stressing about how you’ll pay your bills this month. There is nothing wrong with deciding you’re going to try to build a business from scratch and know that every penny you earn was a result of your personal efforts. But there maybe is something wrong with choosing to be so busy with any one thing that we’re not making time for taking care of ourselves.
In a world where we glorify busy, it can seem lazy to make time for self-love and self-care.
This is bullshit. Self-love in and of itself insists we prioritize our personal needs at the top of our to do list. Self-love is about realizing if we don’t take care of ourselves first, it becomes more and more difficult to stay busy because we burn the candle at both ends. If we’re constantly working, if we’re constantly busy, we’re deciding not to make time for self-love.
We don’t have as many hours in the day as Beyonce. We don’t have all have people on our payroll who can do our hair while we check our social media. We don’t have people who take care of making our meals, driving us around, and handling our schedule. Your daily hours and allotment might be drastically different than mine due to the logistics of your work schedule, family members, transportation availability, and other factors. However, is if we want to make time for something we can and we should.
“No one is busy in this world. It’s all about priorities.”
When someone says I, or anyone else, has “too much time on their hands” I become livid. I hate that expression. How we choose to spend the free time we have is ours and ours alone. There should be no judgments about how someone else decides to live their life. You might choose to spend your free time watching TV, playing board games, napping, hanging out with your friends, immersed in your hobby, running a side business, or anything else. I just want to strongly insist that you carve out a chunk of time where you’re making time for self-love as well.
As much as we might not have a team of people on retainer who aid us in everyday activities and errands, we still have freewill and the choice to say yes to self-care and no to something else. You might be really busy, but you’re still getting shit on your to do list done, right? That’s because you’re prioritizing things. Prioritize self-love. Recognize that’s more important than responding to an e-mail that isn’t urgent and can wait till tomorrow.
The more you take care of yourself, the better you’ll be able to perform in your job, with your loved ones, and in your life in general. Self-care and self-love builds up these coping skills and positivity reserves so when you’re faced with adversity you have some cushion to fall back on. Without self-care reserves, if you get hit with a blow it will knock you on your ass and you’ll have a full blown nervous breakdown because you’ve been so stressed that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Ready to start making time for self-love? Here are 20 ways you can make time for self-love today.
20 Ways To Make Time For Self-Love
PS – Did you know I made you a FREE e-course on mindfulness?
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Thank you so much for 1. saying “We don’t have as many hours in the day as Beyonce.” and 2. sharing that post! I found some useful tips on her post as well! I hate how people say that we all have the same 24 hours. There are 24 hours in everyone’s day but they are far from the same!
I think some of us feel kind of guilty for doing anything relaxing/self-care related. I work, go to grad school, am working on a blog, and am a single mom. I tell people I go to grad school and they always respond with how I’m creating such a great future for my daughter. I’m not. I’m creating a great future for MYSELF. Yes, my daughter will for sure benefit from it, but she isn’t my reason for self-improvement. However, with a busy schedule and responsibilities that I have for me, I still find it hard to decide that I should be focusing on my self-care. (However, procrastination + bad habits are causing me to waste more time than I’d like to admit)
I’ve downloaded your 20 ways to make time for self-care and look forward to implementing them!