Today’s post is from a over 40 female founder and investor who came to one of my 7×7 Mentoring Salons. Her sage advice to a group of young, go-getting entrepreneurs and young professionals talking about how to organize their life with this app or that process: “Let’s cut to the chase. That’s all great …but you also need your me time”.
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Everyone needs time to step back from all the activity in our lives and have “me” time. No matter what you do. Maybe it’s meditating, maybe it’s going to the gym, but there’s something about not “doing”.
Maybe it’s cleaning your closet, maybe it’s gardening, maybe it’s taking a walk without anybody. It’s about not interacting with anyone else and getting centered on just what comes through your mind because when you have that space, that’s when real creativity occurs. That’s when you solve problems. If you’re just the hamster on a treadmill, you’re not going to solve a problem about your company or your job. If you go and go and go —doing stuff, reading emails, going to events, blah blah blah— you can never figure it out that way.
I think this whole idea of balance is hard for women in particular. Women are hard wired in such that they are givers. They care about a lot more than themselves. They care about the world. They care about the social piece. It is a wonderful thing but it’s also very exhausting. We give to our families, charities, friends, etc. So you need to understand that you’re going to be drained, especially when you have kids. It just comes with the territory. That’s when you have to say, “This is really important. I’m just going do this. This is my time.”
Your “me-time” will be different for every person but the consistent thing is that it is your time and that is #1.
If you wake up saying, “What is it I need today?” How radical is that compared to, “What do I have to do today?“ You will always have something to do. But what if you actually say, “What do I need?” Maybe what you need is 30 minutes by yourself or a bath. But women don’t take that seriously. Women don’t say that should be a priority. It should be.