How can you help others when you’re not at your best self?

Let me tell, you as a business owner this is something that I’ve wrestled with. It’s important for us to recharge our batteries so that we can be at our best for our team and for our customers. I think there are three ways we can look at this in terms of, how can we recharge our batteries?

The first is on a daily basis. We’ve got to be looking at what does our day looks like, and where are we carving out time for us? It might be a morning ritual, it might be something you do in the evening and it could even be as simple as what kind of music are you listening to in your car? But looking for opportunities in your day where you can refill your bucket so that you can then give to others. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time but it needs to be meaningful to you. You’ll know that you hit the right trigger when you feel better after. There’s no point in doing things that are prescriptive because someone else said to do them. The whole idea here is to take some time out of your day so that you can move forward in a more positive way. Some of us are really good at doing this, but then we fail to look at the next category.

How are you recharging your batteries throughout the course of the month? That’s probably taking a little more time out of your schedule to get a massage, enjoy dinner with a friend or even maybe sleep in. These things are so important because we can’t be at our best for others when we’re not at our best first. Just take a time to think about that one thing that I could do throughout the course of the month where I just took a time out from the busyness of life, the busyness of running my business and my family, so that I can recharge my batteries and be at my best for those who matter most to me.

Lastly, I think this is the one we think about the most perhaps and when we check this box we think all the other ones are looked after. But in fact, this is something that is only going to happen once or twice a year. Taking a vacation, taking an actual chunk of time and getting away from the busyness of running your business and spending time on things that really build your energy back up. That’s something that’s important and sometimes the first thing we think of. But it’s combining the practice of the daily, the monthly and then a couple times of year into your lifestyle so that you can be at your best for those who matter most to you.

So take out a piece of paper and give yourself the gift of five minutes where you sit down and you ask yourself what does my game plan looks like for recharging my batteries and write down the three buckets the daily, the monthly and then the few times a year. And what does it look like right now? And what would you ideally like it to look like and maybe there’s some a little bit of a gap there and there’s some work to do. Just pick one thing. What’s one thing that you could do today that would make a meaningful difference to you and those around you?