The Feed My Health Podcast

The Art of Delegation and Self-Prioritisation

• Rosalind Tapper

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Is self-care really a luxury, or is it a necessity we can't afford to ignore? Join us as we challenge the societal norms that link busyness with success, and explore the transformative power of prioritizing self-care, especially for women over 30. Discover how making health a priority can prevent burnout and illness and lead to a more fulfilling life. Through my personal journey, I share the realization of embracing downtime amidst life's chaos, urging a shift in mindset from fitting health around responsibilities to fitting responsibilities around health. We dismantle the myth of perfection and encourage unapologetic dedication to personal well-being.

Uncover practical strategies for reclaiming your time and happiness by delegating tasks and setting boundaries. Mothers, who often juggle endless responsibilities, can learn to empower themselves by involving partners and children in household duties. By scheduling health as an appointment, starting small, and letting go of guilt, you can transform your daily routine and boost self-confidence. Embrace the joy and liberation that comes with delegating tasks, and witness the ripple effect of these changes on your personal growth and family life. The journey to a balanced and empowered life begins with one simple step—prioritizing you.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to the Feed my Health podcast. With your host, rosalind Taffer, I help women over 30 get and stay in amazing shape year-round and achieve life-changing confidence. In today's episode, we are going to be talking all about taking back control of your body, your health and your confidence without guilt or burnout. Now, this is kind of a bit of a passion for me, and actually I had a realisation recently that I need to take my own advice a little bit more, because last week I was really really unwell and I know that everybody gets ill. Okay, I know it's just part of life, but it really made me realise, a, how much I take my health for granted, even though I'm working on it every single day, but also, b, how much I need to spend just doing nothing like. Honestly, I know that we are all incredibly busy and I definitely feel like women particularly wear busyness as a badge of honour, but it's not cool when you're getting ill because you don't have any downtime. And when I say downtime, I don't mean folding your washing or, you know, making time to go and do a chore, a household chore. I mean just genuinely having time to do whatever the hell you want without any agenda OK, and for me it was a massive shake-up. It was a massive reality check for me that I need to spend a lot less time working and being busy, and sometimes I think it's just a nice little reminder to everybody that we also need to spend a little bit more time on ourselves. Now, if you constantly feel like there's no time for you because of work, because of chores, because of children, then this episode will be for you and we're going to be diving into why prioritising yourself is necessary, is absolutely essential, and how you can make time for your health even with a busy lifestyle. So grab your walking shoes, grab a cup of tea, settle in and let's have a bit of a heart-to-heart chat. So we have to be really, really honest. We have conditioned, we have been conditioned, rather, to believe that taking care of ourselves is a luxury and not a necessity. We juggle work, we juggle kids, the household, and by the time we even think about looking after ourselves, we're absolutely exhausted.

Speaker 1:

I have a lot of clients, in fact, that will have said you know early on in their journey that maybe they're working like a long day, for example, and they don't want to go to bed because they don't feel like they've had an evening, they don't feel like they've had any wind down time, and so when you're in that situation, it makes perfect sense that you're not also then going to want to look after your health. You're not going to want to go out and exercise. The thing is, though and this is really, really important, and you all know this, but it's just a friendly reminder that you cannot pour from an empty cup. If you are constantly running on empty, you are not showing up as the best version of yourself for your family, for your work and even for yourself. Just because you are getting by doesn't mean you're thriving and I know a lot of you want to be thriving but you will never thrive if you are pouring from an empty cup, and I see you. I do it all the time myself, so I'm not saying that I'm an angel, but this is the reality check that we all need.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the real problem isn't that there's no time. It's that we've sort of trained ourselves to put ourselves last, and it's time that we change that narrative. We always make time to take our kids to their clubs. We always make time for our kids to go to those clubs. We don't make time for ourselves, and that needs to be something that we stop and we actually do start to make time for us without any, any apology as well. So we often tell ourselves, as well, I'll do this when something calms down. But guess what? Your life is never going to slow down because you aren't allowing time for you. You aren't allowing time to do the things that you want to do. There's always something that is coming up and you're always prioritizing that. There'll always be another task, there'll always be another responsibility, there will always be another load of washing that needs to be folded, there will always be another reason to wait, but your body will not wait. Stress, lack of sleep, poor nutrition it all builds up and when you neglect your health, it will affect everything. It'll affect your mood, your energy, your ability to be present for the people that you love. And the real thing, the real, real kicker is that the longer you wait, the harder it will become. So, instead of asking yourself how can I fit my health around my responsibilities, ask yourself how can I fit my responsibilities around my health?

Speaker 1:

Okay, now, if you are somebody like me who, back in the day, really, really prioritized household work, you know making sure that that was always on top of you know like the underwear was folded, and work, you know making sure that that was always on top of you know like the underwear was folded, and you know just ridiculousness. Of course, at that time in my life, my health was at its weakest and its lowest and well, go figure right, everything else was more important and I would make or tell myself things like oh, but you know, I need a clean, a clean house to have a clear mind, and you know, when my house is upside down, I feel really stressed out and that was me making excuses and it actually sounds legitimate, like. It actually sounds like oh, yeah, I feel the same way. But actually, do you know what else makes you feel quite stressed and like upside down is not having time out for yourself, it's not going for a walk and clearing your head or having time to exercise, and everything that I told myself was purely an excuse, and the only person that put pressure on me to have an immaculate house was me. Nobody else was doing that to me. I did it to myself.

Speaker 1:

Now, prioritising yourself does not mean neglecting your family or your work. It means showing up as the best version of you. Okay, so I'm going to give you some kind of little ideas to start with, if this is an area of your life that you're kind of struggling with a little bit. But what I do want to say is this and this is the real thing that I want you to take from this episode is that when you start to make you important, everybody in your life starts to make you important. Okay, people are not going to guess that it's important to you. You need to show them, you need to tell them.

Speaker 1:

If you want to be the kind of person that goes for a walk every single morning and that's part of your routine, you need to do it. You need to be the kind of person that goes for a walk every single morning and that's part of your routine, you need to do it. You need to be consistent with it. You need to show the people in your life that that's what's important. And yes, little jimmy might need to take into football practice on a saturday morning. Well, great, if you want to be that person that takes them, guess what? Get up earlier and go for your walk. Or, better still, drive your son or daughter to football practice and walk around the pitch while they're playing, you know.

Speaker 1:

Look for creative, inventive ways for you to get what you need, alongside them, getting what they need, and don't be afraid to delegate. If you have a spouse or a partner that you can, you know, rope in if you want to go. You want to put it that way, rope them in, no shame. You know it's a team at the end of the day, family, family life, is teamwork and working together. And if your partner wanted to go out and do whatever golf, the gym, running I'm pretty certain that you wouldn't have any qualms about that. But yet, as a woman, we feel like we can't do those things. So let's talk about some little strategies that we can start to implement, to put yourself first for a change. So the first one is to schedule you like an appointment. So block time for your workouts, block time to prepare your lunches for the next couple of days.

Speaker 1:

Self-care is, you know. It comes in lots of different forms. It comes in the form of meal prepping, it comes in the form of working out, but sometimes it comes in the form of just sitting down on the sofa having a cup of tea and watching your favorite show, and that's okay. To put it into your work into your calendar. So for me, on my google calendar, I block out downtime, I block out family time, I block out workout time, I block out work time. Everything has its own little block and sure, I move things about. You know, sometimes a meeting might run over, or a client needs me more that week, or an appointment comes up for the kids. That, you know, is a bit out of nowhere. We all love those ones, thanks school, and then we just move things around a bit.

Speaker 1:

But I don't ever compromise on me because I know and I always joke with my husband about this that ultimately I am the glue, like I am the glue in the family. These things don't happen by chance, they happen by choice and it's important that I'm on my a-game massively. I mean last week when I was unwell I don't think I've ever been that unwell for such a long time but the house went to rack and ruin and, yes, it wasn't great and it wasn't ideal, but it reminded me of how integral I am to the running of the house. But remember that that's based on my standards, right? Not based on my kids standards, not based on my husband's standards. And who am I to dictate what the standards should be. Who am I like? That's.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is that I think a lot of women do struggle with the idea that, you know, unless everything's done their way, it's not the right way, and I know that's a really brutal thing to say, but it is. It is true, because I was there myself like who's to tell who's to say that the way I load the dishwasher is the right way, you know. Anyway, totally go off the tangent. So remember that if it's not scheduled, it's really unlikely to happen. If you want to be the kind of person who has a full-time job in a, you know, high up role and you also want to work out and you also want to go for a daily walk and you also want to prioritize your nutrition, you are fully capable and responsible for making that happen. And you also want to prioritize your nutrition, you are fully capable and responsible for making that happen and you can. But if you're not, you're choosing for that. That's a choice.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we used to schedule our kids into every single club known to man because we thought that that's what they should be doing, and what we realized is we were a much happier family when they were doing half of the stuff when they were doing the things that they actually really enjoyed, as opposed to the things that we thought that they should be doing. And then we had more time for us. We had more time to sit around at home and do nothing, you know, to play games together or go work out or go for a walk, and that really is building a life and building a lifestyle. If you are scheduled to the nth degree and your child is scheduled to the nth degree and then outside of that you're going to work and they're going to school, of course you're going to feel frazzled. Of course you're going to feel like you never have any time for yourself. It's your responsibility to schedule time for yourself as much as it is your responsibility to schedule time for yourself, as much as it is your responsibility to schedule your work or get your kids to school or whatever else. It's really, really important and it won't happen if you don't schedule it.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is to start really small. If you are overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that you have to do right now and the idea of adding more to your load kind of overwhelms, you then start small and don't aim for perfection, like no one's saying you have to do three times 60 minute gym workouts every week just because maybe your friend does that. That doesn't mean that's what you have to do. And if you aren't doing anything at the moment, then 10 minutes is an actual bonus, you know. So start with a 10 minute workout. Start with doing 10 minutes in your living room after dinner. Every single person has 10 minutes. You know, the average person, I think, spends two and a half hours on their phone a day. And these same people are saying that they don't have time to do a workout. And it's not that you don't have time, it's just that it's not a priority. Or you're so exhausted from's not that you don't have time, it's just it's not a priority. Or you're so exhausted from the day that you don't physically feel like you can and the idea of it just kind of fills you with dread. You just want to sit down and do nothing, and that makes sense. But once you start to prioritize you know movement and looking after yourself you'll suddenly have a lot more energy to do the things that bring you more energy, ie a 10 minute workout, for example.

Speaker 1:

Um, one thing that's really great, especially if you're starting from nowhere, is if you're, let's say, you want to prepare a couple of healthy meals for the week. So let's say you bang in some chicken breasts into your air fryer, you season them, you put them on for 30 minutes, you chop up some salad that probably will maybe take like 10 minutes. Tops, maybe, you boil some rice at the same time and then, whilst that's all cooking along, you could do a little kind of kitchen dance workout. Or you could go and lift some dumbbells if you've got some 5kg dumbbells in your house, do a little bit of a mini arm workout. It doesn't have to be anything perfect, it just needs to be something and even maybe going for a quick, you know, 30 minute walk. Bang everything in the air fryer, go for a walk for 30 minutes and come back Done. What would you normally be doing? Would you be normally sitting on the sofa waiting for that air fryer to finish, scrolling on TikTok or whatever? Use your time to your advantage. Number three is to set boundaries and ask for help. This should actually be number one, if I'm brutally honest, because this is the thing that if we could get this down, everything else would be so much easier.

Speaker 1:

I have a lot of women in our coaching program that do everything, absolutely everything. They're doing all the chores, they're cooking all the meals, they're taking the kids here and there and whilst they are struggling to like they're not struggling because obviously you know they're getting some amazing results. But I think that they need to kind of look at it and go right, do I, do I really need to do this? Like, let's just take as an example, in business and you are working in a company, it's not very good business sense for you to be the person that does everything right books the meetings, writes the agenda, attends the meetings, writes the notes and then executes on the plan like that's not a good business structure, that's not a good business sense. But yet when we come home, we are running the house like you are the only person that can do all of it. And when you think about it like that, that's ridiculous. Okay, in my opinion and remember this is just my opinion if your child can turn on an xbox or turn on a mobile phone, they can also turn on an oven. They can also turn on a washing machine. They can also sort their clothes.

Speaker 1:

There are so many things that our children are capable of doing and it's actually really unfair to not let them do it. In the moment it can seem like, oh god, why, you know, it's so much easier for me to do it all, but it's not in the long run, because then what ends up happening is that you feel burnt out, you feel stressed out, you feel a bit like a martyr and your kids grow up not really knowing how to look after themselves all that well and, honestly, like the gift of giving your children independence and responsibility from a very, very young age is the best gift you can give them. It is a better gift than giving them a trip to Disneyland or the latest iPad or whatever. Um, honestly, I promise, and once you start giving and delegating chores to your kids, to your partner, you will free up so much time.

Speaker 1:

I used to cook every single meal like it was my duty, right? So I used to work in the evenings and I would work from about 4 pm until about 10 pm every single night, and then during the day I would look after the kids. But because I wasn't working quote unquote in the day I felt it was my duty to make sure the house was clean and tidy, everything was washed and ironed and there was a hot meal on the table every single night. Okay, now you imagine how much time that takes in a day, now that I delegate all of that stuff out, like we all have our own cooking days and stuff like that. Like I've mentioned before, that saves me so much time, so much time for me to be able to do other things, whether that's work, whether that is housework, whether that's meeting up with a friend, whether it's going to a club of my own, whether it's exercising whatever.

Speaker 1:

And I'm so unapologetic about that because I was not a nice, happy person when I was trying to do it all. I was very much a martyr, but I took it on as if that was my responsibility. And it really isn't, ladies, like it really isn't. Shouldn't just be down to you to make everything happen. So set boundaries, ask for help. Then, number four let go of the guilt. Please let go of the guilt. Your kids don't need a burnt out, stressed out version of you. They need a happy, healthy and present mum. So taking care of yourself is going to benefit them as well. I am such a nicer person since I started looking after myself, like I used to be very, very reactive, very reactive to everybody, not just my kids to everybody. And that's really massively changed for me since I started looking after myself better.

Speaker 1:

And then the fifth one is to change the story you tell yourself. So, instead of saying I don't have time, try saying I'm making time for what matters, because your mindset will shape your reality. Okay, I want you to really think about this. If you were lying on your deathbed, would you saying to yourself, oh, I really wish I'd spent more time ironing, or I really wish I'd spent more time at the office? Or would you think I really wish I'd spent more time being happy and present? Because I can guarantee that you were not going to say the first ones. I guarantee it.

Speaker 1:

But at the moment, what I'm seeing is a lot of parents, a lot of mums, prioritizing all of that stuff and then being upset and disappointed when they look in the mirror and they, they don't like what they see and it's I don't have time. I'm working a full-time job and I just I get home and I'm exhausted, I don't have time, but the ironing's always done, the dishwasher's always empty. You know, so-and-so's always got a gift on time, little one's going to the football, swimming practice and all the rest of it on time. You're not missing a trick when it comes to everybody else's life and everybody else's health, and this is a real problem. It's a real problem and I don't think that enough people realise how much of a problem this is. Let's forget how you look and feel for a second. Let's talk about just your self-confidence. That's a real problem. That we're prioritizing everybody else and everybody else's agenda over our own. It's not good and it needs to change. Okay, it needs to change.

Speaker 1:

So I'm just going to do a bit of a recap on the five things. Okay, so the first one is to schedule your health like an appointment. Number two is to start small. Number three is to set boundaries and ask for help. Number four is to let go of the guilt. And number five is to change the story you tell yourself.

Speaker 1:

I really hope that this episode has given you permission to put yourself first. Remember, prioritizing your health is not selfish, it is absolutely necessary, and when you take care of yourself, every single thing in your life will improve. I promise you that. And if you are ready to take some action and you want some support in making yourself a priority, then you have come to the right action and you want some support in making yourself a priority, then you have come to the right place, because you can tell that I'm very passionate about this. So there is a link in the show notes of this episode. You can book in a call, we can have a chat and dive a little bit deeper into where you're at, what you would like to achieve and the bottlenecks that are holding you back from being the person you want to be, and we can talk about some practical steps to get you moving in the right direction. And if you enjoy this episode, it would mean the world to me if you would share it with a friend or a family member or anybody who needs to hear this message, and I can guarantee that you probably have a lot of people near you that need to hear this message Until the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please continue to feed your health and just remember what I said about starting small.

Speaker 1:

Yes, there are five elements to what I've gone through today in this episode, but just pick one of them. Just pick one of them this week and work on it. So maybe it's okay. What boundaries do I want to set today, or who can I delegate this particular job to today. I love doing that Like find something that you do every single day in your house and find somebody that you can delegate that to, and it will change your life. And also it will give you confidence to know that it's okay to delegate and that nothing bad will happen.

Speaker 1:

Because I used to think to myself oh well, I'm the only person that can do this. I I used to think to myself oh well, I'm the only person that can do this, I'm better at it than everybody else. I've been doing it for much longer. Well, yeah, that's why I was better at it than everybody else, because I'd spent every single day unloading the dishwasher and reloading the dishwasher. Well, give somebody else the opportunity to be good at it too, and you'll get more confident. And, honestly, once you start giving yourself more time to do nothing, you'll be like oh, what else can I get rid of? What else can I delegate? It will start to actually become quite fun and it will open you up to a whole host of opportunities that you will be really proud of yourself for doing so. Enough, enough rambling now. I hope that this has inspired you in some way to take action in whatever way you feel is appropriate for you. But, like I said, continue, keep feeding your health, and I will catch you in the next episode.