Do as I say, not as I do

Photo by Jeff James on Unsplash

Did someone in your life ever say this to you, "Do as I say, not as I do?"  I'm betting a parent, a  teacher or some role like that may have.  What was your reaction to them saying this?  If you're like me, you'd be thinking, "that doesn't make sense; if it's a good idea, they'd be doing it too.  Why are they trying to get me to do this thing?"

As a coach, I know I'm often recommending things to my clients that I know work but that I might have gotten lazy about doing for myself.  We get on a roll and have all of our systems and habits working for us and then life happens, and we end up off-track.

Sometimes, it's quick…we're just drifting into the shoulder and then the rumble strips that are there to protect us from running off the road if we fall asleep, jolt us back to the main road.

Sometimes, we take a short detour to see something cool and exciting and then we come back to the highway as we planned.

And, then, sometimes, we go off-roading without a map or a timeline.  We know that we would be better off back on the main road, but we can't get ourselves back there.  We're lost. We're stuck. We need to acknowledge that we need help.

We probably can all think of times when we were in each of these categories.  I know I have been.

I've recently recognized that, as much as I thought I was doing really well on self-care, I haven't been taking the time to replenish my energy stores, and it's starting to catch up with me.  So, I'm working my way back to the main road where I feel at my healthiest and most energetic.  How each of us does this will be different. 

For me, I'm letting go of some of the expectations I put on myself so I can focus on what's fun and easy -- in my business, my running, and my life as a whole.  I'm working on getting back to a guiding principle of "if it's not a hell yes, it's a no or not right now."  This is hard because we feel bad not living up to what others may hope we're going to do or maybe because it's something we want to do. But I go back to the other adage, "when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else" so make sure you're prioritizing the right ones.  I'm going to work on being more intentional in where I'm spending my time and energy.

So, the morale of this story is, don't be the one giving great advice to other people that you forget to take for yourself.  We have to take the medicine we know will keep us healthy and well.

If you need to come back from the off-roading of life, and you're looking for support, let's talk.