How often do we say to ourselves “I really should do that”? We hear others saying the same thing. On the surface, this might not seem like a problem. After all, as human beings, we want to do what we think is “right”. This is a good thing!
We get into trouble, though, when our orientation to living becomes focused on accomplishing things and checking items off of our ever growing “To Do” lists.
Having this type of external focus too easily leads us to spend our daily lives doing things based on what we think we “should” do rather than what we “want”, “need” or mindfully decide to do. Do you resonate with this?
“Should-based” living often translates into living on autopilot as we rush to get one more thing done. When we do things we think we “should” do, we believe we are being our best selves, fulfilling our responsibilities well and serving others. However, living this way can be extremely stressful, unhealthy and often undermines living purposefully. I’ve also come to believe that daily decision making and behavior based on “shoulds” can let us off the hook of taking personal responsibility.
When we say “I really should do this”, what we often mean is “I’m doing this because it’s something that I think I’m supposed to do”. It doesn’t matter if we are doing this because culture tells us to, our doctor tells us to, or we are striving to be “good” daughters, friends, wives, parents, or professionals. Making decisions primarily to fulfill shoulds prevents us from mindfully evaluating the task at hand based on its merits and whether or not it helps us achieve the things that we most value.
In essence, should-based living neglects and starves our unique sense of self. Maybe this is why so many of us feel hungry all of the time. Maybe we are craving our own essence, our sense of WHO WE ARE.
“Should-based living” breeds imbalance. Living on autopilot, living as “human doings” instead of human beings is, ironically, often the path of least resistance. It is often easier to do what we feel is expected of us than it is to do the hard work of figuring out what it is we want to get out of life.
Every one of us is unique. But if our daily behavior only fulfills what we think we’re supposed to do, we miss the opportunity to fully express our uniqueness. Should-based living comes easily to most women. We have been socialized to be good mothers, wives, and friends. To be conscientious employees. To volunteer in our communities. And much more. As we contemplate the decisions that fill up our days, it is important for us to understand why we might be inclined to live a should-based life. But, the most important thing, is to evaluate if the manner in which we live and make those decisions is taking responsibility FOR our life or abdicating it?
Taking responsibility for living life on our own terms can be scary stuff. But, from my perspective, the alternative is scarier. Feeling detached, drained, and unmotivated on a daily basis. Of course we want balance in our lives and we get balance, in part, through serving others and fulfilling our responsibilities. But if most of your energy is consumed by the “shoulds” you might be missing out on inner peace and a sense of balance. You may be endangering your well-being and health.
We all deserve to become our best selves and to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives. It’s our right as humanbeings.
I am writing to you about self-care at an auspicious moment, close to Mother’s Day and just weeks after becoming a mom myself.
Because of this, I feel compelled to write about one of the most common challenges of motherhood: Pushing your own self-care to the back burner. Motherhood itself brings a fierce love and desire to care for our children, but it’s also accompanied by a strong societal message that a mom’s needs should only be met after we take care of everyone, and everything, else. Rarely does this approach leave any time for our own self-care!
It is no wonder that a recent study reported that women sacrifice sleep to accomplish all of their “to do’s” and “to care for’s”, to the detriment of their long-term physical and mental health.
Sometimes the hiatus from one’s self-care is necessary and temporary. However, I’ve often found that women’s care-giving of others often becomes an entrenched mindset and habit that can go on indefinitely for 20, 30, even 40 years. Given our role models, and strong societal pressures, it is easy to understand why women often put everyone, and everything, else above their own self-care.
During the past 14 years working with midlife women, I have discovered that they choose to change the status quo and learn how to prioritize their self-care because they decide that they want to get more out of life. They determine that their on-going self-care, quality of life, and health are worthy investments.
If you want to be such a woman, let me share the secret to on-going self-care. I call it Permission² (squared). Permission ² parallels the concept of Yin and Yang, the ancient Chinese idea of opposing, yet simultaneously complementary, elements that keep life in balance.
Women who practice on-going self-care give themselves two types of PERMISSIONS (Permission²). The first PERMISSION relates to feeling entitled to take care of yourself so you can feel energetic, healthy, and positive. It essentially says “yes” to one’s own self-care. The first PERMISSION allows women to truly devote time to the things that will enable them to age with energy, meaning, enthusiasm, and health. This PERMISSION empowers women to say “no” to others’ requests that will interfere with the time they had planned for their self-care.
The second PERMISSION refers to the opposite. Because “life happens”, other priorities emerge unexpectedly. This second PERMISSION allows a woman to be flexible with her self-care goals. In contrast to the first PERMISSION, this one says “not now” to self-care. By confidently saying “not now” to self-care, a woman can tend to the immediate needs of life when necessary, and then easily return to her self-care plan.
Life happens – always. So, Permission² allows a woman to balance her self-care plans and goals with life’s unexpected demands. It is essentially the foundation for sustaining any self-care and health behavior over time (dietary change, exercise motivation, etc…), and keeps a woman and her life in balance. As I embark upon motherhood, I am confident that Permission ² will enable me to continue caring for myself as I take care of others. I hope you will give yourself the gift of Permission ² too.
Please share any of your challenges, strategies, and/or successes with permission(s) to say “yes” or “not now” to self-care.
By focusing our New Year’s resolutions and efforts on the “outcomes” (e.g., losing weight, getting organized) we often rush into the behaviors that we hope will get us there. But, it is the BEHAVIORS THEMSELVES that determine our ultimate success and our ability to persevere over time.
We should think about the behaviors that are essential to achieving our desired goals and choose one to focus on at the beginning of this important endeavor. It is important to understand that changing eating habits and becoming more physically active are VERY different behaviors and should be treated as such. The conventional approach to lose weight suggests focusing on both diet and exercise concurrently. If your goal is to lose as much weight as you can quickly starting to diet and exercise at the same time will get you the best results. But if your goal is to achieve a fairly large weight loss goal and/or you want to SUSTAIN the weight you lose, think about a different approach.
Changing your eating habits and learning how to make exercise a regular and consistent part of your life at the same time is very challenging. Eating and exercise each have their own “tasks” and “rules” associated with them. Both require distinct discipline, and have associations with separate sets of emotions (often negative). Think about how likely it is that we can learn how to integrate these two very distinct behaviors into our lives so we can sustain them both over time? You know if your previous efforts to initiate diet and exercising at the same time have worked for you long-term. If they have, continue to do it. If they haven’t, why not try a different approach?
To answer this fundamental question I have to tell you about a study I conducted. In 1994 while at the University of Michigan, I researched with Vic Katch and others whether exercise could help breast cancer survivors decrease depression and anxiety symptoms. The data showed that the breast cancer survivors who exercised significantly decreased their depression and anxiety levels, compared to the control group that did not exercise. I thought that was the end of the story…
Three months after the study ended, we asked the study participants to come back to participate in focus groups. The survivors talked about how wonderful exercise had made them feel both mentally and physically. Of course, I was thrilled to hear how much exercise was benefiting these women!
But I was then shocked to discover that almost everyone had stopped exercising,when their commitment to the study had ended. I asked the study participants: “Why did you stop exercising when it had made you feel so good?”They gave me many answers. These women said that they had stopped exercising because of their many daily responsibilities - cooking and cleaning, chauffeuring children, taking care of others, etc.
After listening to the reasons why these women had stopped exercising it became clear that their barriers were not due to being cancer survivors, but from just having internalized women’s cultural roles and responsibilities. The epiphany I had was that although these breast cancer survivors had been comfortable making a commitment to exercise to fulfill ourstudyrequirements, they had not felt comfortable committing to exercise just to improvetheirownhealthandwell-being!!
Moreover, that women who had faced a life-threatening illness had difficulty prioritizing their own health and wellnessdemonstrated exactly how deeply women have internalized being the caregiver of others but not necessarily themselves.
Do you relate to this? Over the years I have been amazed by how many women do. The BIG question is, if we feel this way do we want to CONTINUE doing so? Why?/Why Not?
What types of things do you do to help you expand your care-giving role to include yourself?
The question I posed in the title has been the driving force of my professional life since 1994. But before I talk about this question I want to define “women’s essentialsteps”. Generally, essentialsteps are the things women do to take care of themselves. I use this term more specifically to refer to physical activity because physical activity constitutes the essentialsteps for women’s continued health and well-being.
Why? There is a huge body of research showing many many many amazing physical health, mental health, and quality of life benefits from physical activity. Regular physical activity reduces the risk of getting breast and colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, among many other things. It helps reduce the re-occurrence of breast cancer. It staves off developing Alzheimer’s disease. It improves cognition, memory, and intelligence. It enhances well-being and mood, even as well as anti-depressants. Physical activity acts as a “wonder drug” on our mind and body.So why don’t we all get regular doses of physical activity then????
This is THE question of the day! Everyone wants to know the answer to this question. I have spent the past 14 years thinking about and researching why women don’t sustain physically active lives. I’m not going to present my resume here, but I’ve spent over 11 years studying this through a few graduate degrees and research at the University of Michigan and working directly with women over years in the community. One of the reasons women don’t sustain physically active lives because they ARE NOT MOTIVATED TO do it. That takes us to the next question. Why aren’t women motivated? I actually believe that I’ve figured this out. This answer represents part one of two posts regarding “why women don’t take their EssentialSteps?”
Women may be motivated to START exercising but they don’t STAY motivated to do it. My interest is in THE SUSTAINABILITY of physical activity. Many of us get motivated to start exercising when we are making New Year’s Resolutions, when “bathing suit” weather is approaching, and/or for an upcoming trip, Bat Mizvah or Wedding. Does this sound familiar? So, we typically start exercising for reasons related to changing our body shape or weight. I’ve discovered over the years and published about the problems associated with women taking this approach to exercising.
We often have unrealistic goals for what exercise will actually do to our bodies and can’t achieve them. (Believe me, we’ve been sold a lot of hooey from companies marketing their fitness products and services.)
We are exercising FOR AN EVENT. When that event is over, we have no reason to continue.
We select physical activities aiming to “burn calories and lose weight” or “tone up”; most of which we don’t enjoy. In addition we may exercise so intensely to achieve our body-change goals that we just can’t sustain it for very long OR we injure ourselves. In addition, for some of us, exercising actually reminds us that we don’t feel comfortable with our bodies. Whichever reason it is, we don’t continue for very long.
So, the approach that we take to exercising is one we’ve learned to take in our culture, and I call it the “Vicious Exercise Cycle”. We just keep doing it the same way, time and time again. Hence “vicious”. But my friend and colleague Harriet recently mentioned that there are two meanings to the “Vicious Exercise Cycle”.We are stuck in the same cycle over and over again. But the cycle is ALSO vicious; it is cruel and brutal because it keeps us at war with our bodies and consistently leads us to feel like failures.Given this, WHY WOULD WE STAY MOTIVATED TO EXERCISE OVER TIME?????
I’d love to hear your reactions to this, as well as your thoughts and experiences regarding your personal difficulties with staying motivated to exercise.
