Why your self-care isn’t working

I want to share something pretty weighty that I’ve realized recently.

I’ve shared before that 7 years ago I went through a debilitating burnout.

And if you’ve read my books, come to my talks, or listened to my podcast, you’ve heard me talk about the many different lessons I learned and changes I made to go from burnout to living and working with lots of energy and joy.

But there’s a lesson I haven’t shared because I’ve only recently understood it.

It came up in a conversation with an awesome woman leader I’m mentoring and I immediately realized that it’s a theme that’s come up with other women I’ve mentored…

… and that it was THE blocker that kept me from feeling better for so many years.

Here it is:

No amount of self-care will help you to truly deeply feel better if you don’t believe that you deserve to feel good.

Please read that a few times.

Feel free to close this email and go think about this for a bit.

Is it true for you?

Do you believe that you deserve to feel good?

Or do you believe that you need to make everyone else feel good first?

Or that you haven’t yet accomplished enough to deserve to feel good?

Or that life is a struggle and you’re just not supposed to feel good other than for brief moments?

These are some of the stories I believed and they kept me trapped in burnout.

These are the stories many of my students believe and they keep them trapped in burnout, overwhelm, and doing things that don’t honor their humanness.

These are the stories you have to edit and release if you truly want to feel better.

Where do you begin?

Might I suggest my book, THE AWESOME HUMAN PROJECT. I wrote a whole chapter to help you edit stories that keep you stuck in struggle.