It’s been another long, hard week of extra hours, extra effort, and extra stress with the kids going back to school or staying home and home-schooling, new pressures from work, and still more time home alone, not going out to enjoy regular socialization with friends and family.
It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair our…but let’s not go there yet. Let’s take a more positive stance.
Let’s take a moment to look back at all the awesome things we did this week. Count up all the meetings you attended and kept your composure and didn’t yell at someone or give them the stink eye.
Count up all the tasks you completed and didn’t complain about why someone else isn’t contributing or keeping pace.
Count up all the times you wanted to throw up your hands, flip your desk, or throw your mouse or water bottle across the room, but instead took a breath and stayed on task.
Hopefully, there were not too many of those times, but if there were, congratulations for keeping your composure and giving your all and making it through another difficult week.
Now that you’ve looked back at the work you did for your employer and your family, let’s look back at what you’ve done for yourself.
How often did you take time for self-care when your stress level got a little too high? How often did you do a little meditation or some mindful breathing to refocus and re-energize? How many times did you give yourself a pat on the back for not yelling, not flipping a desk, or not throwing that water bottle?
Self-recognition is a powerful tool. It can manifest in the form of an internal high-five, a little meditation, or even a little pep talk.
We all need to be there for ourselves, because (and especially when many of us are isolated in our own home offices) we won’t always have someone there to smile at us, or tell us what a great coworker, roommate, partner, parent we are, or actually give us a high five or a pat on the back.
We spend so much time thinking about others, recognizing them, and thinking about what we can do for them, while we casually forget (or think we don’t deserve) to recognize and thank ourselves for all the work and effort we give each week.
Whether that work is for our employer, or for our loved one, or friends or family, we must remember that we need to feel appreciated and valued from ourselves.
If we are lucky, we may get recognition from our loved ones, or our bosses, or our kids (good luck with that), but we need to do it for ourselves just as much, if not more. Self-recognition boosts our energy, builds our confidence, and bridges the void when we feel we’re not quite enough.
When we learn to show gratitude for our own efforts, behaviors, and outcomes, we can do so much more.
When we appreciate ourselves, we can better appreciate others.
When we care for ourselves, we can better care for others.
And when we love ourselves, we can better love others.
Be more present for yourself, recognize your efforts, congratulate your wins, and celebrate your awesomeness!
Go ahead. Take a moment right now to recognize yourself and thank yourself for giving five days of amazing effort. You deserve it!
Your Mindful Moment:
When we celebrate ourselves, we celebrate life!
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