Unselfish Me Time

Father’s Day and the week after was kind of a fast and furious week. We took a surprise trip to Denver to see family and sit with Grandma in the hospital. I spent the week among people I love and gave my time and my sanity to them. It was a week well spent. The things that didn’t happen, were the time that I take for me.

The next week, my parents went on a bike ride for a few days and I was leading solo at work projects and trying to keep a schedule between work and family. I also did not take time for me that week. From Sunday through Friday, I didn’t take time for me.

Last week, I did not have a blog post. I was uninspired and preoccupied by work, family, money and the rest of everything else. I let me become less of a priority than almost everything else. I didn’t eat right, I didn’t train, I didn’t write, I didn’t do anything for me.

Finally, Saturday morning, yesterday, I got up and ran! I ran 7 miles. I may not have been quite in shape enough for that, but I did it. Within the first couple miles, I was back into my head, I was inspired, I was ready to write.

This for me was evidence that I must take time for myself to be my best self. I don’t mean that I need to go do things that would have a negative impact on everyone else because it’s what I want to do, but to do things that put me in a place to better serve my family, my friends, my clients, and the people I come in contact with each day.

How do I decide what is positive or productive “Me Time” and what is negative or selfish? Well, Here are a few questions I ask myself:

• Is this something that I would like to have remain a secret?
• Is there a like minded group of people that would enjoy doing this activity with me?
• If it costs money, is it something I can actually afford?
• Am I Proud of this thing?

I guess the first question should be: Is it legal? Ha ha! That’s a good place to start. 

My theory is, if you don’t have positive answers to these questions, you might reevaluate you priorities and what you consider “Me Time”. I am not here to say what is a “good or bad” thing, that is something you have to consider for yourself.

Ultimately, if you spend all of your time pouring yourself out, you will run out of self to pour. Even the biggest containers have limits to what they can put out if they are not replenished from time to time. 

I would like to follow up on this next week with Leaky Cup Syndrome. Life has normal ups and downs anyway, sometimes it is just not possible to fill ourselves all the way back up. What then?