Day 14: Love yourself first. Then love your customers.

Go Go Go!

There’s been a recurring theme among people I’ve been talking to lately. Clients and friends alike express the urgency to “be productive” and forbid themselves to take breaks because it doesn’t move them towards some thing they’re after.

Crash!

What happens when you work yourself so hard that you faint in front of a client and end up bedridden for a week?

What happens when you deny yourself rest for so long that your “being productive” is crappy, half-assed work?

What happens when you occupy yourself with busywork (Twitter, Facebook, mindless web surfing) trying to look productive, yet don’t meet your deadlines or sales goals because your brain is toast?

Is this giving your customers your best?

Is this truly your greatest work?

We’re driven.

Entrepreneurial types are driven to win. It may not be a blatant desire to be the best at everything, but you’re so sick of playing someone else’s game that you’ve decided to win at your own game. There’s also this whole Puritan Work Ethic that still floats around the Western psyche to contend with.

This drive tricks us into thinking that the harder we work and the less pleasure we allow ourselves, the greater the reward. Later.

This drive postpones all rest and relaxation until we’re so old we can’t enjoy it.

This drive also causes massive amounts of stress and the bodily manifestations of stress (low energy, high blood pressure, insomnia, short tempers).

So what’s the use in going it on your own if you’re just as stressed as anyone else who wears hose & heels, suit & tie?

Change your MO.

You are your greatest asset. And there’s only one of you. Unless, of course, you’ve managed to clone yourself. In which case, contact me now because we need to talk.

And since there’s only one of you, you need to take care of you.

This means eating right, exercising, showering (!), spending time with your family, reading, goofing off, vegging in front of the TV, going to parks, movies, museums, art galleries, taking art lessons or karate lessons, going for coffee with your friends.

This means filling your own well before you fill others. The Permission Fairies say it’s OK.

If you’re spent, you can’t give your best

Love yourself, be kind to yourself, before you love on your customers. They can tell when you’re fully alive and when you’re half-dead.

So…

What is holding you back from giving yourself permission to rest?

And an assignment: Pick one day this week to do nothing. And shower.