Hello, my dear reader!
Let me introduce myself. I'm Veronica Gedd, I'm a Life and Business Coach and HR consultant, and my main focus now on preventing and overcoming burnout and on enjoying life, a big part of which is joyful work.
Yes, I believe in it sincerely.
Because I've experienced it. I am recovering from burnout. For a long time, I've been ashamed to say it and to share it with a lot of people. But now I am determined to share my experience and my story because it can help so many people.
And today I would love to share with you my favorite tool, which I invented for myself at the bottom of the deep dark scary hole of helplessness. This tool has helped me to build stairs for myself and get back to the surface of a normal life with desires to work, to act, to communicate, to dream, to hope, to live happily…
I think you've got it:).
For the last 1,5 years every morning, I've been writing down a question:
What is the most important thing that I might do for Myself today?
FOR MYSELF! TODAY! DO! IMPORTANT!
Try it. Write down a question and notice a vector of your emotions.
Answer whatever first comes to your mind, do not overthink. Handwriting is the best. This way your brain helps you and supports your desires. Write down the question and the answer. No guilt, no shame, no doubts. It even doesn’t matter if you will not do it today. What really matters is you start asking yourself. Small steps. Big wins. You are on the right track. You are not alone. Let's rock!
What Is The Most Important Thing that I Might Do for Myself today?
Here goes a backstory.
My hypothesis. In simple words.
When a Person does something for yourself (with intention and focus on: I am doing it for Myself) the Person feels good and more likely to act.
So, my hypothesis is that our brain supports us with different pathways and hormones depending on just why but for whom we are doing something.
I bet that experiment will show a correlation between focus on Myself (action from the position of Myself) and which hormone participating in this action, versus I'm doing it for somebody, for something.
Two possible ways to show you my thought process supporting this hypothesis.
You can choose what to do first.
Test yourself (instruction at the end of this post).
My story and explanation.
Story:
I experienced total professional and personal burnout. Although, I am a positive, joyful, energized person, who is always willing to help everybody and find the best way to overcome anything, superachiever, performer, perfectionist, creator, optimist. It was always my personality. I cannot even imagine what burnout feels like for a pessimistic person.
Scene 1. I am at age 35, at a peak of a great career that I love (Global HR Director, biggest European tech Internet company, six-figure salary). Total professional burnout, quit my job, went down to not doing anything and not being able to find any motivation to move, not to say to act. But! I could think, and I could read and wanted to find answers for this, damn, burnout that stopped me from all that I wanted and dreamed of.
Scene 2. 5 years later. 40. Nothing worked. Meditation, mindfulness, running, learning new languages, MBA, new country (moved from Russia to the USA, San Diego - the happiest city in the world), interesting international environment, thousand of possibilities around. All of that was very good and wonderful. But I still couldn't force myself to work full-time, and it was getting worse. At some point, I couldn't work at all. I was doing projects and the experience was as if I was doing something terrible to myself, it was bad and dark. And, again, it was something that I loved doing, I wanted to learn more about it, I enjoyed this subject, I voluntarily and with excitement agreed on doing these projects.
Burnout was deeper than I thought. OR! I was focusing on something that wasn't helping me physically and mentally (in my thoughts) to overcome whatever I needed to overcome.
Scene 3. At some point, I found an interesting affirmation "I belong to myself". I really was looking everywhere, whatever works, just give me a magic wand or a pill, I just want to be active and to do anything. I've realized I wasn't feeling, thinking, and acting as "I belong to myself". I totally felt "I do not belong to myself", although I had money, time, ideas, I knew what can help me, etc. And from this moment started my way back to normal. High emotions and energy, which were always natural to me, started to show up.
From what I've read and learned about Burnout I understand that the main cause of it is when a person is doing something for the sake of others, for example, professions such as teachers, nurses, doctors, etc. So, basically, burnout syndrome occurs when a person sacrifices himself/herself and feels like a victim.
There are many other reasons, unfortunately. Although, generally it all comes to sacrificing yourself and diving deep into the role of a victim (not consciously, not realizing it all sometimes), and losing willpower. And when I'm looking back, I did exactly that. I didn't realize it, but I was helping everybody around joyfully with all of my energy BUT with the wrong focus! I didn't notice when joy was gone and then energy, etc. Long story short.
Сonclusion: Hence, doing things for yourself, consciously realizing it, should help in supporting your efforts, energy, willpower, and achieving goals.
Nowadays: For the last 1,5 years every morning I've been writing down a question:
What is the most important thing that I might do for Myself today?
I meditate every morning, I write morning pages (journaling), I practice mindfulness, consciousness, intentionality, responsibility, I recognize my emotions, my old beliefs, obstacles, I know my desires and dreams, I read, I walk, I am going to launch an amazing group coaching program to prevent and overcome burnout.
I live. I love. I laugh.
Yes! Happily ever after. You are right!
Yes! I love happy endings. And I'm not ashamed of it anymore. I'm not ashamed to say that I was helpless and weak back then, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm mightier and stronger now. I'm not ashamed to say that my desire is to live with happiness, joy, ease, and fun. And I'm not ashamed to say that from time to time I'm going down that road again, feeling fear and frustration, and many other unpleasant things. But I have my stairs now, I have my tool-belt, I have desires, I want something, anything.
You think it's too pompous, but I know that just a tiny thought of the possibility to be able to enjoy life kept me alive. And I know we all can and we all want to. You are not alone.
What's with the focus on Myself.
The thing is, when we do something for Self we do it with more pleasure, even if we feel guilt or shame (or whatever) before, during, or afterward. It derives from the instinct of self-preservation.
Curious fact! All things we do, we do for ourselves, yes, everything. The difference is, do we realize it or do we focus on doing it "for my mother", "for my husband", "for my client", "for my child", "for my friend', "for my boss, or work", etc.
Interesting observation. Even with this knowledge, I have to remind myself of the concept and to check all my tasks periodically if they are still on the "For Myself Side" of my TODO list.
Test Yourself for Myselfness.
1. Write down a question and notice a vector of your emotions. Answer whatever first comes to your mind, do not overthink. Handwriting is the best. This way your brain helps you and supports your desires. Write down the question and the answer.
What Is The Most Important Thing that I Might Do for Myself today?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Write down tasks (todos) that are on your mind right now in two columns: For Myself / For somebody. Write down for whom you are doing it.
For Myself / For somebody
3. Now think about the second column. How can you reverse it as a task for yourself?
4. Or let's say: Why are you doing it for yourself? I would like to do it for Myself because...
5. Notice the difference in emotions, desire to act, energy, whatever. There is a difference. And I bet hormone response will show it, or some part of the brain, something significant will show up. I even wrote to a neuroscientist to check it out:).
Start your day with what you desire.
Thank you for your time and for everything that you are doing - it is priceless.
Warm regards,
Veronica Gedd
Life-Work Empowerment Coaching and Consulting
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