Tuesday, April 5, 2011

To take care of others, you must first take care of you

In the midst of working 10-hour days (on average), preparing meals, keeping up with household chores, miscellaneous errands, etc. it can become very easy to put yourself on the back burner. Naturally, we want to first take care of those we love, and if time permits we will then move onto ourselves.

If you take the time to first help yourself by reading, exercising, dressing nicely, eating well, etc. you'll surely be more confident, thoughtful and rational. This is the type of person who inspires change and helps others to be their best. If you're unhappy and unconfident, you cannot inspire others to be this way.

A great example of this is when flight attendants give their safety speech before take-off. We're always reminded to comfortably place the oxygen masks on ourselves first, then we are to proceed with helping others. Why? How can we save others if we haven’t saved ourselves? We must be alive and thriving to be able to pass this along to those we love. By not taking care of ourselves, we are not only doing our own selves a disservice, but we are also hurting those we care most about.

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