cliché New Years post
Hustle.
That word is used to represent hard work, usually with the expectation of success. (Not talking about drugs here) I’ve always been taught that hard work is a virtue and you have to earn your victories. I worked hard through high school, didn’t have time to party or get into trouble. Worked hard through college to finish quickly and get into my professional field.
And now we find ourselves in a new year. We’re setting new goals and we’re ready to kill it.
Sure, goals are important to keep us moving forward. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished so far and I hope you are too (we survived 2017, thank god). But I’ve also seen a deterioration in my health and happiness over the years - increased stress and anxiety, drinking too much, too many sleepless nights worrying about my projects, and that constant nagging FOMO. How can I still be missing out if I’ve been hustling this hard?
Somewhere along the way I’ve gotten my goals confused with my own self worth.
Running into old friends, they say “Oh you’re freelancing now? How’s that going?” and I totally panic because I haven’t felt productive at all. I’ve enjoyed my time off, but for the first time in my life I don’t have anything to show, I don’t have a progress report, and I’m not even sure I have a specific goal right now.
And that brings us to the point of this post - if any of you have felt this way, let’s look at it together.
I’m sure you’ve heard of self care by now. Every other instagram post is
- a bubble bath with an absurd amount of candles #selflove
- a gorgeous stack of pancakes because you deserve it #selflove
- a hot girl at the gym again #selfcare
- an acai smoothie bowl too perfect to eat #selfcare
- an exotic island vacation, just because #selfcare
Isn’t it strange that these hashtags require so much work, time, and money!?
I barely get to the gym these days and I think its weird to eat a smoothie with a spoon, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts. Just yesterday I found one called Self Service (by Girlboss radio) that completely blew my mind. It’s only a 20 min episode, but get this truth bomb:
“Self care doesn’t mean I have to do any more, it means I have to set a boundary with my time and with others in my life so that I actually do less.”
This really made me think about the amount of guilt and shame I heap onto myself. Is it possible to do less? Is it possible to not try so damn hard all the time? That honestly sounds amazing. Lets imagine a world where we enjoy what we’re doing, we have compassion and grace for each other, and at the end of the day go to sleep knowing we lived in the moment. We were present with our loved ones, we did our best work, but also had grace for ourselves and our sanity. And thank god that’s not something we can edit and post on instagram. This kind of self care is messy - maybe we didn’t shower this morning because we had a great idea and rushed straight to the computer, bed head and all. Maybe its spending time with our fur babies, picking up their poops, feeding the stray cats, and generally looking like a crazy animal lady because we love those weirdos. And sometimes, maybe that’s just having one (or two) glasses of wine and being really proud of yourself for that self control. My #selfcare isn’t instagrammable.
But damn, it makes me feel good.
Evaluate.
How would doing less change your perspective of yourself? By changing your perspective of yourself, how would that affect how you interact with others?
PS.
I cannot stress enough how going to a counselor regularly has changed my life. If you’ve been stuck in a self critical merry-go-round please consider seeing a professional! <3