Depending on your daily schedule, the coveted alone time that so many of us are searching for can sometimes be difficult to come by. Whether you have a demanding work schedule, juggle multiple jobs, have relationships to maintain, have children to care and provide for, the list goes on, but time in your day does not. The energy demands of your day will vary from person to person, season to season, and maybe even day to day. One thing that holds true in all scenarios is that it is imperative to make time for yourself.
This can often be one of the greatest challenges that you face when dealing with the demands of life, but it is equally one of the most important things to tackle. Time for yourself, again, looks different for each person, but the root of this treasured time is that it is a time in which you can focus on you. Let your cup be filled so that you can then go and pour into everyone else. If you yourself are not being taken care of in a way that recharges you, then you are only barely able to pour into others in the way that you optimally could.
Time for yourself allows you to check in with your needs. It allows you to evaluate what you need to prioritize and how to best move forward. Time for yourself is not selfish. It is essential. When you have the proper amount of “you time,” it creates boundaries and structure for the rest of your routine. It helps to cultivate a more optimistic outlook for your life. You see, so many of us go from one thing to the next and it causes us to feel burnt out pretty quick. Having time for yourself helps to lessen the blow and reduce the risk of burnout.
Women are nurturers by nature, so it is easy to understand how big of a challenge this may be. When it comes to identifying your “you time,” first consider how much you need. Is it on a daily or weekly basis? Perhaps just a weekend per month? When you identify how much time you want to devote solely to yourself, it can help you decide where to create room for it in your schedule. The time that you choose may vary by task, meaning how you choose to spend your time.
Which leads to the next point, identifying how you need to spend your time in order to maximize your recharge. For some, it might just be a quiet morning with a cup of coffee and a good book. For some, it might be a quiet moment in the evening/night time to journal or watch TV after the kids are in bed. It might look like going to the gym or getting that at home workout in. It might mean going out to shop or run errands alone. It might be getting on the phone with or going to visit a friend. Each of these tasks require a different amount of time, so when planning your time just be mindful of what you are doing and how much you are going to allow yourself to spend on it each day.
Understand that the actual length of time does not have to be the same each day or each time. It might mean 10 minutes first thing in the morning or last thing at night, but ultimately you need the space to have time for yourself so that you can check in with your needs. How you spend your “you time” might depend on what your needs are each week, but having scheduled time that you know is for yourself to be filled up is critical to your livelihood.
When it comes to actually creating the time and allocating how you spend your minutes, this might be the more difficult task. How many times have you told yourself “I just don’t have time for that.” At the end of the day, we all have the same 24 hours to live out our lives. A portion of that you spend sleeping (hopefully), a portion is spent working, and a portion is probably spent caring for the loved ones in your life. It might just take a good, hard look at your schedule, but when it comes to something that you prioritize, there is always time.
Which goes back to the amount of time you need and desire. Don’t make the excuse that you don’t have time because you expect that this will take an hour or more each day. A ten minute morning meditation or journaling session could be all it takes. The power is in what you choose and actually doing it. Your life can and will change when you give yourself permission to spend time on and with yourself.
You are your greatest investment. What you value becomes a priority, and if you give yourself permission to put yourself first, it can and will enhance your life for the better. Truly making time for yourself can transform the way you interact with and change the lives of those around you. What you prioritize matters. Your “you time” matters. It is not selfish to make time for yourself. No matter how big or small, the time that you put into yourself will give you a greater return on investment than pouring from an empty cup ever could. Do yourself a favor, and take the time to make the time today.