Don’t Forget About Yourself!

The Growing your Team Podcast: Episode 148

When was the last time you took a day off to only focus on yourself?

You care about your team, but what about you?

Don’t forget about yourself! It’s what you, your business, and your team need to continue to be a success. 

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Episode Transcription:

This podcast episode transcription might be edited for clarity and conciseness.

Hello, Jamie Van Cuyk here, and welcome back to the Growing Your Team podcast.

This week’s episode is going to be super short, but it’s a very important message that I don’t think we talk about enough, and I want to make sure that I put it out here with you.

00:01:03 – Make sure you are taking time for yourself.

We talk all the time about how you need to value your employees, making sure that you’re taking care of them, that you’re caring about them as people, and not just a way to earn you more money, but you need to also focus on you.

You need downtime. You need time for self-care and to really focus on you. Not just making sure your employees get that.

The reason I’m talking about this topic this particular week is I’ve been exhausted lately. There’s been a lot of stuff going on, and I just haven’t been sleeping well. And when I looked at my schedule for this week and thought about recording an episode and then thought about going through the actions that I take to help promote the episode, I decided it was something that could be postponed. I needed the extra time so I could really focus on my clients and then focus on me; take a little bit of that downtime.

So make sure you’re doing that for yourself as well.

00:02:11 – When did you last take a real day off?

Right now, I want you to think, when was the last time you took a day off work?

And I’m not counting the weekends. (And if you’re working through the weekends, you really need to take a day off.) But I’m not counting a full day off during your standard workdays where you didn’t do anything work-related. You didn’t answer a work-related phone call; you didn’t respond to an e-mail or even look at your e-mail or work notifications.

If it has not been recent, look at your calendar now and schedule a day in.

Nobody needs to know why you’re not available on a certain day. Nobody needs to know why they can’t book with you. All that they need to know is that you’re not available and that they can book with you another day. Your team can help pick up the slack for a day and alert you if there’s anything urgent that’s going on.

00:03:24 – You need it!

Trust me. You need it.

You can’t keep going, going, going, and not take care of yourself. So, find a day now to take care of you.

And I know you might sit there and say, but we’re coming into the holiday season where there are lots of days off. Well, I guarantee you, if we’re coming into the holiday season, you’re saying there are lots of days off, it’s probably because of the holidays, kids being out of school, traveling to see family, and doing specific things that are holiday related. It’s not you really taking a break and relaxing because, trust me, that’s how I can get at times. It’s even on those days off, it’s for other people and other events. So, take time for you.

00:04:12 – Flexibility does not equal time off

One of the other things that prompted this episode is I was thinking back about a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a friend who works a job that has a very rigid schedule.

This friend made comments about how I have much more flexibility than they do and how it must be nice because they were talking about how all their vacation is about going to see family. They haven’t had a real vacation in a while.

We did a lot of traveling over the summer. I said yes, I have the flexibility where I can work from wherever, but it also means it’s very rare that I take a full day off.

So, I guess I’m guilty of this too – of working all the time.

00:04:58 – When are you going to take time for you?

Thinking back on that conversation and thinking about the past few weeks when I haven’t been sleeping well, I’m left asking when am I going to take time for me?

So, I am challenging myself to put more me time in my schedule.

Doing so will allow me to be more present during my work hours, and I want you to do the same thing too.

Schedule you time in your schedule. That way, you can be 100% present when you need to be for work, and you could be 100% present when you need to be there for your family and friends.

You can’t be 100% present at work, and you can’t be 100% there for your family and friends if you are exhausted because you never give yourself a break. So, take a break.

If you can do it this week, great.

If you do it next week, fantastic.

If not, get a day on the schedule sometime in the next month where you take a you day. Your business will survive.

Start prioritizing yourself because you deserve it, and it’s what’s going to help you keep going, thriving, and scaling this wonderful business that you are making.

Related Episodes:

Ep29 – The High Cost of Not Giving Your Employees Vacation Time

Ep89 – How I Worked Less and Still Had My Best Sales Month Ever

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