Discovering the Power of Self-Prioritization for Personal and Professional Transformation

May this episode inspire you to put yourself first.

Does your daily routine leave you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted? What if there was a way you could reclaim your joy and revitalize your life? 

This episode is explores how the habit of prioritising ourselves can lead to a markedly improved life, both personally and professionally. I debunk the falsehood that fatigue and burnout are the inevitable price of success, emphasising instead the importance of self-care, and how it positively impacts not only you, but also those around you.  Exploring the concept of self-care that goes beyond diet, sleep, and exercise to how we move through our day-to-day lives, ensuring our own wellbeing before extending ourselves to others.

How you are in the world matters: YOU MATTER

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Overwhelming's optional podcast where, each week, we find ways to gently rebel against the nonsense that overwhelm and exhaustion are just the price you pay to have the life you want. May this episode inspire you to put yourself first. Why? Because how you are in the world matters. You matter. How you move through. Your day changes not just how you feel, but how everyone around you feels. When you are okay, when you feel at home in yourself, when you feel calm and confident and connected to that fuller part of you that knows how to move through the world in your particularly unique way, everything's easier. It's easier to focus and it's easier to not upset other people, which is huge. Right, because we care deeply about other people, but this can be a really difficult one for some of us. If I put myself first, isn't that selfish? Do I deserve to put myself first? That doesn't make any sense. But notice it, how you are, notice the impact of when you feel refreshed after a good night's sleep, when you've eaten well, when you're not pushing yourself too hard, that you're trying to keep a lid shut on this volcanic emotional eruption.

Speaker 1: 1:15

What I did for years, looking back, is manage my emotions well at work, but not so well at home. All the volcanic eruption from suppressing stuff at work would result in the people closest to me getting the raw end of the deal, and I didn't like that. But I didn't know what to do about it because I thought I had no choice. I thought over one was compulsory. Pushing through exhaustion until the next weekend or evening or holiday or whatever was just the way things were. In fact, I was explicitly told that and modelled that. So it's not really surprising, is it? I thought that to have it all as in well-paid, meaningful work and the lifestyle I wanted, that over one exhaustion we're just compulsory. It's just the way things are. And now I know that's a nonsense, but it's taken me a long time to unpick that and find a different way of doing it. It's taken a lot of courage to gently rebel against that nonsense.

Speaker 1: 2:08

So if I'd known the impact, what would I have done? If I'd known the impact of living in that way on my life when it imploded, what would I have done differently? Well, I would have put myself first. I would have taken my own health and well-being more seriously. I thought I was taking it seriously. That's what's difficult. But I think I was overcomplicating it.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So I thought that if I got better at lots of things like sleeping, relaxing, switching off, focusing, being more productive by hacking my diet, hacking my sleep, hacking my productivity, hacking my exercise routine just like going guns, blazing it at the old secret invisible get better at list then everything would magically be better. And some things were better, at least for a while, but it was unsustainable because it made my life into this incredibly strict timetable and all my energy was going on maintaining all of these improvements so that I could hold everything together. And it's just, it's not my way of doing things. It doesn't work for me. It works, it might work for some people, but it doesn't work for me. So instead, what I would have done if I could talk to myself 10 years ago now, I would say well, just focus on how you're moving through the day, as in, what do you need? What supports you? First, make sure you're okay before giving to anyone else and that's really hard for somebody like me and probably like you, if you're listening to this because we want to be of service, we want to help other people, we want to do a really good job, we don't want to let anyone down and we want to be very professional, so it's very, very difficult to say, okay, I'm going to put myself first. It just doesn't make any sense. It feels like a clash of values.

Speaker 1: 3:58

And yet before I went headlong into a career and I chose to do different work that enabled me to leave work at work so I could raise my children, I actually did notice that I was how I was affected them so hugely. It was such obvious feedback so if I was in a horrible mood or tired, they would become in a horrible mood and tired because it was just me and them. And I remember being really shocked once to discover that not was I responsible entirely on my own for raising two small children and paying a mortgage and holding everything together, but also how I was had this huge impact which seemed really unfair because it was really tough to be a single mum. It's really tough to be a parent, but to be a single mum and have everything riding on me, all the responsibility, and then be expected to somehow be calm and lovely, that was a tough one. And I really remember noticing that if I looked after myself better so I could change how I was not just trying to hold everything together, getting stuff done. Then they were calmer and happier and it was immediate, really, really. I mean maybe not instantaneous, but it was very, very obvious. It was a very good mirror actually, and so I got better at putting myself first, as in looking after myself better and also making sure that I had time with friends so that I could rebalance and not lose that adult part of myself, so important.

Speaker 1: 5:29

But I seem to lose that when I went into teaching and I think it's partly because there's just this expectation that you give and you give and you give and you give. But also there's a lot of opportunity, there's a lot of good you can do, and I really liked that. But I think mainly the reason that I lost that personal commitment to looking after myself well was because it was. It was seen as a bad thing, quite literally. You know you should not go to the dentist if you've got an exam class, you shouldn't take time off, even if you're really really sick, so you could have flu. But if you can stand up and get to the loo then you can probably teach. It was just clearly a nonsense, clearly madness. But there was big, big pressure and, being the kind of person I am, I took that pressure on in a way that maybe other people don't. I don't know, but there's a lot of.

Speaker 1: 6:23

There's a lot of people exhausted at work, right, it's easy to end up in that situation where you feel like you have no choice and if you want to carry on with all of this success, you've worked really hard for that your lifestyle is dependent on. Then then you're just going to have to put up with it. You're going to have to put up with not being able to think straight, with your brain feeling bruised at the end of the day, with not sleeping that well, not being able to switch off and leave work at work, not really being able to be fully present in your home life, and that's just so common and just feels incredibly sad to me. It doesn't make any sense. Firstly, it doesn't make us very efficient, which means we're wasting a lot of time. Secondly, it creates lots of problems. If you think of how poor customer services in some companies. I'm sure that's partly because the people are doing either trying to do too much or the systems and processes aren't set up that make it easier for them to do the job.

Speaker 1: 7:19

There's no pride in the work. There's something going on there isn't there, and it's just to me. If everybody's feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from their purpose, from having purpose in what they're doing, it's bad for everyone. It just creates more problems. So if you're a company, it creates more problems because you're just going to lose customers and upset people and you're going to have a high staff turnover. And if it's you personally, which is what I'm mainly interested in it causes more things for you to be doing, doesn't it? Because you make more mistakes and then you have to undo the mistakes and then you forget to do some things, or you don't sleep because your mind is rehearsing all the things you mustn't forget to do to avert the next disaster, and it's just rubbish and it doesn't result in real success. It doesn't result in having it all at all. It results in having one thing in this hand and taking away in the other hand, and that's just a nonsense. So if I think very, very specifically, see if you resonate with any of this.

Speaker 1: 8:19

I'm comparing when I'm overwhelmed. So by overwhelmed I mean my stress reaction has been kicked off so often into high alert that I can't think straight. I have this low level anxiety. I'm not able to switch off, I'm not really able to focus. So to focus costs is a real pushing through excuse me, through overwhelm. So it's like a forced focus rather than that beautiful, clear focus you get when you get out of the overwhelm first, when you allow your nervous system to reset, when you start to get to know your nervous system and work with it rather than against it. And yeah, it's just overwhelms, just it's no place to be right. We've got to make it, got to make it optional. Even though it seems to be compulsory, it's a myth. Let's gently rebel against that nonsense together.

Speaker 1: 9:12

So when I'm at ease, I can focus, I can prioritize, I can switch off and I can switch on, and it's that is the ability to switch between the two, which I think is a ninja skill that we need to learn. That's what I practice, that's what I teach, that's what I coach people on, one of the main things to be able to do. That is beautiful, it's just it's. It's makes life livable, but more than that, it makes life joyful because you can feel all the goodness around you. It's a bit like I think.

Speaker 1: 9:42

So I've just been harvesting some beans. I've got purple climbing beans. This year, despite planting five different sorts, I do have a lot of purple beans. I don't understand what happened, but never mind, purple beans are fun. What's interesting, though, is that a bean, a bean plants are huge, and they get entwined and they become this jungle, and then you go to pick them. You think oh, there's some there, and then you miss most of them, and even if you search, you'll go back five minutes later and find some more, and I find that really interesting.

Speaker 1: 10:14

That, to me, that represents that whole thing of when we're overwhelmed, we can't see straight, so we miss a lot of the good stuff. We don't get to experience the fullness of what we've already created, of how we're already safe, how we already are abundant. We just have so much, and we don't get to appreciate it, because overwhelmed just blocks that vision and makes it very tunnel vision, very focused, a very light, frightened kind of run, run, run, run, run, run, just get this done, just get this done, just get it. It becomes a tunnel vision and it's just. We can keep going like that, but it's just not much fun, and we I think it's almost like an addiction of when I get get to the end of the tunnel, can you see the light at the end of the tunnel and then somebody builds an extension on your tunnel. It's like when I'm looking for beans, unless I just, in a fun, relaxed way, just go.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Well, it's hunt the bean time, because the bean plant doesn't want me to pick its beans, does it? Because they're its babies, right, they're all its seeds. Now it doesn't really need to have 1,000 seeds a year to survive. So I'm sure it's willing to share some beans with me and that's all fine, but it's not gonna make it easy for me. It's the same with the courgettes. I mean, the courgettes are spiky and the green of the courgette is the same color as the stem and the leaves are enormous and they block my view of the courgette. It's very, very clever. The raspberries are the same. They block the view. So you see one or two and it's quite enticing. You think I'll just go and pick the raspberries, get out of there. There's like 10 times as many and they're hidden. I think that's really cool. It's very clever of the plant.

Speaker 1: 11:50

But if we use that as a metaphor, we can see that that's easy with life too. That's what my unexpectedly lovely things tiny, huge, life-changing practice is about when you deliberately search for something unexpectedly lovely not just lovely. So it's not just a practice of gratitude where you look around the room, go, oh that's lovely, that's lovely. That's lovely because that's just like finding the first couple of beans or raspberries or courgettes. If you wanna find more. So if you want more, without having to work hard or do much, you'll get to the end of your to-do list Woo-hoo, because we need to reverse this nonsense. Not that we don't want to get to the end of the list well, there isn't an end but we don't want everything to be contingent on that working hard and forcing ourselves through overwhelming exhaustion. So the idea is that everything you want is a feeling that we think we're gonna get when we get to the end of the tunnel. But you can feel it now in the same way as if you look carefully and differently, you can see that there are 10 times as many beans or raspberries, not courgettes, because they're not gonna give you 10 times as many. Come on, a courgette is a pretty cool thing. Like it's big already. You can make a whole lot of that. How much do you want? No, I'm joking, but you can see more if you take the time to train your mind to look.

Speaker 1: 13:21

So, with the Unexpectedly Lovely Things practice deliberately searching for one minute for something unexpectedly lovely, particularly about things that are already familiar. So this is a good one to do at your desk because you don't have to move, which is cool, right easier. So you just look around and go. So I'm looking at my second monitor now. What's beautiful about it, what's unexpectedly lovely about it? Well, it's got a life coaching certificate my latest one on there and it's got purple in it and actually if I look it's got lots of different purples. So I can look and look and look and find something more. In the same way, there are loads of beans to be harvest that I can't look. If I just do it in a hurry I miss out.

Speaker 1: 14:01

So that, for me, is one of the big things about getting out of overwhelm deliberately practicing that skill over and over again, refusing to push through overwhelm because it doesn't work for me, it's not enough for me. I don't want to live in that survival panic mode all the time. It's not always not panicky. I mean I was highly functioning, as I'm sure you are when you're in overwhelm, like we're good at it, right, nobody knows, we get away with it. It works. It's just we want more. We just want to rebel against that nonsense. So when I back myself, rather than thinking that I have to look after everybody else first, then I can see more beans. Or, translating the metaphor back into real life I'm nicer to be around. I'm just nicer to be around. So I can focus more on nicer to be around. Everything works more efficiently. It's just easier and, particularly, it's easier to prioritize, because I remember who I am and what I like doing and what makes me happy.

Speaker 1: 15:04

And then they go oh, I need to do that next, rather than oh my God, there's so much to do. In fact, I've noticed in the last couple of weeks that I've been getting some overwhelm around. Oh my God, I've got so much to do. How am I going to get it all done? And we've also been doing so. The building works finished on the house, and then we're tackling some stuff inside and tidying the garden up and doing it. And as soon as you start doing that like we bought a new dresser for the kitchen and took away some old cupboards and now there's just stuff everywhere because, well, where does it go now? Because as soon as you do something like that, you create chaos, don't you?

Speaker 1: 15:39

So then my mind's then going into that chaotic state of and I need to do this and this and this and I need to get a person to fix that and I need to order this and that, and the thing is we live in a cottage that we're renovating and it's gonna take a long time because there's always something more. It's like a little treasure hunt. But I can either look at it as a series of mini adventures, of an opportunity, because we chose to buy somewhere that needed renovating because it's beautiful it will be. It's getting more and more beautiful by the day or we could have just picked somewhere that didn't need all of that, and if I'm gonna feel stressed by it, it's not gonna work for me, is it? But it's still.

Speaker 1: 16:17

My natural default state is to go into overwhelm, is to think, oh, I must do that and I must do that, and I must do that and I must do that or else, or else, or else. No. That just doesn't work for me, it's no fun, it's not for me. I don't do overwhelm, I don't do pressure, I don't do exhaustion anymore. I find alternative ways to have it all, to have what I want, and that's the practice Finding alternative ways, finding the hidey way of doing things, because that works for me and it works for my clients, helping them find their way of doing things Otherwise, oh my goodness, it's no fun. It's much more fun not being the person who goes home and has a complete meltdown at their partner. Those volcanic eruptions I don't like them, I don't want them. I rarely have them anymore. It's lovely, it's joyful.

Speaker 1: 17:19

I'm still the same person. I'm not some irritating, zen-like, calm person who doesn't react to anything and doesn't get out there in the world and take risks and do stuff and gets upset. I still get upset. I'm still highly emotional. I'm still highly passionate, highly driven. I haven't lost that part of myself. I've just found a way to make friends with myself and I have to put myself first.

Speaker 1: 17:39

I have to prioritize looking after myself first and in particular, for me that means staying out of overwhelm, reducing pressure before I do anything, because it's very easy for me to get sucked back into that tunnel nonsense of when I've got this, then I'll feel better and I know it's not true, because when I've done that I feel a bit better and then I do need to do this and this and this, because the more I do, the more there is to be done. So that doesn't work. So my practice is to start now, to start with intention. So if you're with me on the idea that how you matter matters, that putting yourself first and how you are moving through your day matters, what's the easiest way to do it? What's my go-to tiny, huge life changing practice?

Speaker 1: 18:27

Well, the one I'm working with most at the moment is intention setting, and it goes like this I wake up in the morning, I notice whether overwhelms bombing me, thought bombing me, my mind's moving through the day. I ought to do this. I ought to do that. I pull my attention back to myself, I notice how I feel and then I set an intention for the day. If I forget, that's okay. As soon as I remember I set an intention for the day and that's why I started this episode with. May this episode inspire you to put yourself first, because my intention for this episode is that it inspires you to put yourself first. That's my intention, that's what I'm infusing this episode with.

Speaker 1: 19:08

So intention setting for me is tapping into the feeling of the thing already done, the thing already being completed, feeling that now Noticing what is it I'm trying to achieve, what is it I'm craving? Is it safety? Is it freedom? Is it ease? Is it fun? Is it joy? Is it connection? What is it I'm craving? What is this feeling? Why am I about to do all of these things? Why am I going to put all of this effort into doing this list of stuff? What is it that I really, really want? Because everything we do is in order to feel a certain way.

Speaker 1: 19:42

If you feel the feeling first, not only does it help you do the thing, because then you've got a sense of purpose, you know why you're doing it, but how you do it changes, which means that you feel good now anyway and you can focus better and it's easier. You just find the better way of doing it. The more you way of doing it and the more you practice moving through the world as yourself, committed yourself first, loving, accepting yourself first, the easier it gets to do that, because it's all just a practice, right, it's all just a series of tiny, huge, life-changing practices doing the smallest thing to have the biggest impact, to create the greatest transformation for you, so you can feel more joy, more ease and more freedom and you can ditch the overwhelm, pressure and exhaustion, along with the accompanying inconvenient tear leakage, volcanic eruptions at your partner, being grumpy with your dog, being impatient with your kids, etc. Etc. Etc. So the smallest thing I recommend is intention setting, identify the feeling of the thing completed. Or you can do this in different ways. You can do it before doing something. So I did it before recording this podcast, do it before sending an email, where you can do it in a bigger way.

Speaker 1: 21:03

I highly recommend just doing being quite general, because you can just wake up in the morning or whenever you realize and just set an intention for that day. So an intention for the day might be today, I want to feel at ease, that's it, and then feel the ease. It's really worth attempting to embody the feeling first, because not only does that feel good, so you've already won your day right. So if you're pushing through your day in order to feel at ease at the end of it, if you feel the ease first, you've already won your day Right. This is yeah, it's cheating. It's a very, very gently, gently, rebellious act. Nobody knows. Oh, I already feel at ease. I'm going to absolutely rock this day, or maybe it's a scary day. Maybe you've got some big, courageous thing to do, so we'll see. Opposite of it feeling scary. I feel at ease, I feel safe. Whatever happens, I will be okay. Everything's always working out for me.

Speaker 1: 22:01

So, talking yourself into the state of the thing that you want the ease, the safety, the groundedness, the feeling more you, the acceptance, the love, the connection, the joy, the health, the wealth, whatever it is you want, feeling that first. So you need to identify it obviously. So when you're first doing this, to start doing this, it can take a little bit longer, because I what does that really mean? We'll just play with it.

Speaker 1: 22:27

How do you wanna feel at the end of the day? How do you wanna feel at the end of your list? How do you wanna feel when you've done this next thing? How do you want to feel when you go to bed at night? You go. How do you wanna feel when you wake up? Well, I wanna sleep really well. Well, the problem is with I find one of the issues with saying I want to sleep really well is that then there becomes this anxiety about if I don't sleep really well, that means this, or then, because you can't try to sleep well, you have to just let go and sleep, so it can be easier and lighter and more fun to say well, my intention is to rest really well and to wake up feeling. How do you wanna wake up feeling? So, for me it would be I wanna wake up feeling refreshed and energised and excited about the day. Whatever, make it up, it's your magic wand. Anyway, that's what I have Intention setting Noticing why you're doing something. Then start with the how instead of the what. So if I feel like this now, I can move through my day in a different way. So then, how you move through the doing of the thing is with already having the feeling of that completed. So you could do this just before doing something.

Speaker 1: 23:38

Every time you do something, like I mean if you're doing the same thing, I don't mean every time you do anything. Well, you could, but oh my God, I can't spend. I can't spend all day doing tiny, huge life. Change your practices, or you wanna like they're not tiny? Then right Like all your life would be trying to change yourself. There's nothing wrong with you, just like. Pick one for one minute a day, enough, unless you're having fun with them. Do what you want. I don't know. I'm not giving you advice, I'm just offering you to be part of my journey. And if any of this inspires, you take it. If it doesn't dump it, obviously because you know what's best for you.

Speaker 1: 24:15

The beginning of the week's a great one, absolutely brilliant one, because then you can, you know how you start the week and you can feel under pressure and you're like, well, friday will be here soon, but there's like this mountain to climb before Friday. Well, imagine you've already climbed the mountain. How do you wanna feel on Friday? Feel that. Now. Bring that into your week, move through your week with that ease, that joy, that sense of satisfaction. It's much more fun. This is great for a big project.

Speaker 1: 24:44

So I think I mentioned on a previous episode about my road trip. I set the intention that I would give myself permission to wrap up my business, let go, fully be present and enjoy the road trip, and that served me absolutely brilliantly. And I would have set that intention but then practiced it regularly. I had it written out in front of me, on the wall behind where I'm recording this. I had it sat by my bed and I constantly said it like a little mantra. And so, and then everything I did or not everything I did, but a lot of the things I did before I went away enabled that to happen. So, for example, the way I organized my work so that it was easy to wrap up my business and take time off, also doing things like I created a menu of choice rather than a strict structure, so that the road trip became one of fun and ease and spontaneity and we could do things according to how we felt and the weather, which would do big things that affect how you feel.

Speaker 1: 25:43

You can Google forever things that you want to do and then you get there and find that that's not really what you had in mind and that can be disappointing. Or you can just go that's okay, that's not for me right now, but I know what I really wanna do and then that's already there. So that's how I that was the big intention I set for the road trip and I do believe that's one of the many reasons it was so successful and I enjoyed so much freedom and ease, which I my intention is still all this month. My top intention is to embody that into my daily life, that feeling of freedom and ease. I'm not finding it super easy. I have to say I am having to. It's why I'm Recording this episode, actually, because I've done so much work on intention settings.

Speaker 1: 26:27

So the if the intention is to bring more freedom and ease from that holiday into my life, how can I make that easier if I'm not finding it easy? How can I make it easier? How can I make it easier? How can I make it easier? And I think that's a good idea anyway, isn't it? How can you make it easier, like for doing anything? How can I make it easier? How can I make it more me? How do I want to do it? How do I feel? How am I moving through my day? What's going on for me?

Speaker 1: 26:53

So neutrally, noticing how you're feeling and then setting the intention Well, I want to feel like it's already done. What would that feel like? Feel that in your body now and Then move through your day and eventually these practice, these practices become smaller and smaller because they just get Embedded in your life. So like you could just be cleaning your teeth, setting your morning intention, done, done, done, done and then notice the effect. Because if you notice the effect and it's a really good effect effect you're gonna want to do it more and then it gets it snowballs right. So make it easy, tiny, tiny things.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Anyway, I hope that this episode has inspired you to put yourself first, because you are worth putting first and you make a difference. How you move through your day, you affect everybody you come into contact with. So if not for you, if you can't do it for you yet, well I would love for you to do it for you, because you do matter enormously. Then do it for all the people you come into contact with until you can do it for yourself, but mostly do it for you Because you matter. How you are in the world matters and you're so worth it For more resources to help you gently rebel. Please visit my website, wwwheidymarkcouk.