Girl's Night In
Chances are, when you think of self-care, you have visions of face masks, manicures and massages. Don’t get me wrong, these all sound great, but to me, this is pampering, not self-care.
Self-care is taking care of yourself, inside and out.
Sleeping enough.
Eating well.
Saying no to things you don’t want to do and yes to things you do want to do.
Self-care is being honest about what you need and having the chops to ask for it and express it. In fact, self-care can also extend to your brand. Read on my lovelies...
My Girl Wants to Party All the Time
After I split from my husband, I thought I had to be out all the time. When I didn’t have my son, I was on dates or seeing friends or perhaps both in one night. Or maybe having multiple dates in one night. Ok, not maybe. I was a serial dater.
I didn’t want to be home. My couch barely had a dent in it. And I loved it! I was the toast of the town, right? Gallivanting around, doing all the things my married friends didn’t, loving the somewhat single life. And I did this for a long time, running on adrenalin, the promise of love again and excitement. I was filling a void with busyness.
Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off
But like all things, at some point you look around and realize this isn’t what you want for yourself.
Or this isn’t who you are.
Or you hit a wall.
Or all of the above.
I realized I did want to dent that couch. I mean I paid a lot for it and it was really comfy! And I also realized that the single me didn’t have to always be out. I was allowed to stay in and relax. Having plans every night wasn’t who I was or had to be. I had just assumed that identity. And being overly social wasn’t necessarily going to correlate to finding someone to date. In fact, it could have quite the opposite effect if I was tired or stressed.
Just Say No
I realized that I was overextending myself. I wasn’t taking time for me, so I couldn’t put my best foot forward. So I cut back. I started to be more discerning about who I went out with and how often. I started to schedule my workouts so I would be sure to not stay out too late the night before. I went to bed earlier. I spent more quality time with my son and made those nights sacred. None of this happened overnight. But I realized that some small self-care steps went a long way.
Taking Care of (Your) Business
In today’s everyone-on-24/7-constant-messaging-world, many brands and organizations are feeling the burnout as well. This fallacy that you need to be everywhere and reach everyone can exhaust companies, as well as people. And worse, muddy the message when you have countless people churning it out with no clear brand guide or direction. Most companies get into forge-ahead mode and don’t take the time to step back and assess.
In other words, when was the last time you did some self-care for your brand?
Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing
Here are a few ways to get started if you find yourself on a hamster wheel of messaging and content and desperately want to get off:
What can you cut back on?
Do you really need six social channels? Is your audience on “all the things” or do most of them congregate in one or two places. Take a real look at your engagement and growth and see which channels you can stop posting to (or cross post) and which you actually should spend more time on.
How are you communicating?
A lot of brands, like people, might be sending mixed messages, and therefore not getting what they need. Is your brand message clear and cohesive to both your employees and your audience? Is everyone on the same page about your mission and values? Clearly defining these can make all the difference in feeling confident about what you put out in the world.
Are you being consistent?
Do you have a newsletter that goes out sometimes (and by sometimes, I mean you have no idea when you sent the last one)? Do you send emails when you get around to it? Is there a blog on your site with four posts and they’re all from 2018? The best messaging and outreach are things you can commit to. So think about what you can consistently deliver, how often (be realistic!) and dump the rest. You’ll be amazed how freeing this feels.