Planning makes things possible, not easy. ~Ishita Gupta
One of the most freeing assignments I give to coaching clients with respect to business planning is the instruction to plan their year of self-care first. You must make yourself the first priority. This may take some getting used to but give yourself permission to experiment with this new way of thinking.
Here’s why.
If you aren’t taking care of you to the best of your ability, you will not be able to take care of your family, your business, or your clients as well as you need to — there simply won’t be the energy or stamina to sustain the required commitments. And, your creativity will suffer as well which means not only will you be detracting from other priorities in your life, you will find yourself unable to produce anything capable of filling the gap of your loss.
Purpose of advance planning
The purpose of this advance planning is to ensure you remain in top form mentally, physically and emotionally. This is necessary for withstanding the stress, challenges, disappointments and responsibilities that come with exercising the freedom of independence in pursuing your dreams. As a bonus, planning self-care first prevents you from selling more time than you can realistically make available to others without compromising more important factors in your success.
Once you have everything booked in your calendar that you need to do for yourself, and this includes medical appointments, exercise, regular downtime, dream time, personal and professional development, digital detox time and vacations (solo or with family or friends), then and only then do you allocate the remainder to clients, product creation, business development and volunteer work.
If this is the only change you make, it will be the best planning decision you’ve ever made. I’m not saying your other goals aren’t worth planning for… they are. Advance planning makes things possible, not easy. But planning your self-care makes the pursuit of possibility easier and more likely to succeed. At the same time, it protects you from achieving your success at a cost that is too high to pay.
More next time. Until then, remember to LOVE YOUR WORK, whatever it may be.
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