As we touched on in our previous blog, we define abundant living as respecting your financial reality, while working diligently to eliminate debt and build wealth. It is not about living in excess, or spending for your wants before handling your needs. In fact, being mindful of your money opens the door to leisure and relaxation without stressing whether your bills are paid. But to get there, you must set short-term and long-term goals to balance your spending and saving. It requires time, patience, and faith.
And when it comes to work, American culture is very goal-oriented. Milestones. Bottom-lines. Targets. Sales numbers. Advancement. All of these things require time and hyper-focus to continuously achieve. We try to look forward to restful weekends...but let’s face it, most of our weekends are filled with the things we didn’t have time to handle during the week. Laundry, shopping, cooking, appointments, spending quality time with family. We have practice/rehearsals/events for our children’s interests.
We take care of our tasks at work. We take care of our children. We take care of our pets. Our home. Our responsibilities. But when do we take care of ourselves?
The basic definition of “self-care” is the practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own health, well-being, and happiness. We are better employees, better parents, better friends, and better significant others when our health, well-being, and happiness are protected. What's the old saying? Something about not being able to get water from a dry well…
Practicing self-care has to be as important as your job, and family, and home. A tired mind doesn’t make sound decisions. A tired body can’t carry a load. A tired soul can’t fully love...God or self. So, think about the things that help you relax, that help you feel refreshed. And consider how much time you allot for self-care within a week. Then consider this...even God took a full day out of 7...to rest. That’s literally 14% of His week was dedicated to rest.
We have to trust God. We have to trust that if we do our work unto Him, self-care and leisure have to be a part of that continuous plan. He is concerned about us and all of the things we need, so He understands when and we have to pull away, why we have to shut down/reboot, why we need to take time for ourselves.
As mentioned above, Americans really have to work at our self-care, as our society doesn’t value it as much as achievement. Most full-time employees are afforded 14-21 days for sick, personal, and vacation time COMBINED. And entrepreneurs very often forget to schedule time off because of the pressure of succeeding and making sure their employees are paid.
It is up to us as individuals to take control of our time, and ensure we are taking care of ourselves. We invite you to check out our show that expands on this topic, Self-Care and Leisure: Necessity or a Luxury?
In the meantime, make a list of the things you’d like to do more in a week to care for yourself, and make a conscious effort to devote time to yourself. Click here for a few examples of simple self-care ideas. Let us know how it went!
As entrepreneurs and as wives, we take self-care very seriously. As such, we are taking the month of August to refresh and reboot. The live broadcast of Abundant Living Radio will be on hiatus for the month of August. But do not fear! We will be re-broadcasting from our archive, and our blogs will continue as scheduled.
