Nurturing Your Soul

Number Yourself: Count yourself as an important individual. You are important. You need to be counted and acknowledged especially when you are helping others. One way that you can do this is by taking proper care of your self (having enough sleep, food, exercise and relaxation). Then you will have enough energy to help others and live the rest of your busy life. Sounds too basic? It's supposed to be. It's the basics that hold daily life together.

Understand Yourself: Think about how this fits into your self-care. If you understand when you are hungry, then you will eat and renew your energy. This happens with any other activity, such as sleep or exercise. Likewise, when you know your needs, you can take action to meet them, instead of ignoring them, and making your helping work and your daily life that much more difficult.

Respect Yourself: Believe in yourself, your talents and your abilities. Focus on the times in your life, when you know that your actions or words helped someone else to change their life. Helping others is not about being compensated by material rewards. It is about being compensated by experiencing intangible rewards, including high self-esteem, confidence and satisfaction of a job well done.

Take Care of Yourself: To help others, you do need to take care of yourself. I've already mentioned some ways that you can do that. Work toward maintaining balance, emotionally, physically, socially, mentally and spiritually in your life. Then you will be able to help others with more energy as well as not depleting your own resources.

Unburden Yourself: It's important to have support, during the fun times as well as the tough times. A wide base of support may consist of friends, family and community resources (e.g. church, synagogue, support groups and healthcare professionals) and keeping a personal journal. There are many resources available to address difficult areas that arise while doing your work. It's important to maintain a balance when you are helping others. Make sure that you are receiving support from others on a regular basis.

Rule Yourself: Work regularly toward keeping your internal life in order. Reach out to your support system. Reach out if something is out of order, if you have a question or concern, and yes, to celebrate the good times, too. If you have a particular spiritual discipline that you follow, make sure to devote some regular time to that practice as well as to the community that shares that practice with you. This will energize you and help you keep your focus on the bigger picture.

Embrace Yourself: Hug yourself. Take mini-breaks and vacations. Plan for fun times for yourself and with your favorite people. Laugh. Take a humor break. Act like a child. Surprise yourself. Surprise yourself again! Keep smiling.

Copyright 2005 Writer's Eye Advisory Service

Lael Johnson, owner of Writer's Eye Advisory Service, offers creativity coaching services and additional writing resources. This article may be reprinted as long as the text is unchanged and the author is notified by placing the title of the article in the subject line.

---

Have You Got a Minute?

Such an innocuous little phrase, yet when you are hard... Read More

Boost Your Productivity with 10 Minutes at the End of Your Day

Once you have completed your day you can boost your... Read More

Put Yourself First

Are you too busy to put yourself first? If a... Read More

5 Result-Getting Time Management Tips

How often have you tried to manage your time in... Read More

The 3 Biggest Priority Busters

As a professional organizer, consultant and trainer, I have come... Read More

Time Well Spent

It is common knowledge that creating and living according to... Read More

Time Mastery vs. Time Management - Knowing the Difference

How much time do you spend on Mastering Your Time?... Read More

Vilfredo Paretos Principle: The 80-20 Rule: 80% of Results are Produced from 20% of Efforts

Vilfredo Pareto's Principle, or The "Pareto Principle," is more commonly... Read More

What To Do When Youre Short On Time And Long On Need!

Everyday life can present us with opportunities to make us... Read More

More Time Wanted? Deal with Your Time-wasters Now!

Ever feel that you spend too much time shoring up... Read More

Work at Home Moms: Time Management Tips

"How do you DO it?!" If I had a dime... Read More

Time Management Lessons from a 3 Year Old

Zak is my three-year old godson. He is the apple... Read More

Writing a Thank You Letter for Meeting

I have a habit of sending a thank you letter... Read More

Time Management is Cause Control

Recently I've experienced a barrage of time wasters. Everything you... Read More

Time Management: Setting up your Schedule for Success

Would you describe yourself as extremely busy? Do you often... Read More

If Only Your Brain Was the Size Of That Of an Ant You Could Easily Implement Habits

A year and a half ago I was introduced to... Read More

Are You Always Late?

"Fashionably late" is no longer in fashion. In today's heavily... Read More

Hey, Free Agent, Did You Eat Your Breakfast Today?

And when you finally sat down to eat breakfast, was... Read More

Four Steps To Make Your Day Dynamic!

There are two ways to start your day. The first... Read More

Isn?t It Time For You?

Does it seem like there is never enough time in... Read More

Webmaster or Web Slave? Time Saving Tips for Cyberpreneurs

Time is money in your online business, just as in... Read More

How Much Is Poor Time Management Costing You?

* If you were paying you to prioritise emails over... Read More

Reading -- 10 Ways to Find The Time

Why Read?It's been said that there are three kinds of... Read More

Shifting Priorities Are The Norm

Years ago when I started in this business, it seemed... Read More

Tips to Manage Incoming E-mail

Friends, colleagues, and clients are all telling me that one... Read More

Emergency Living

There are times, when I am driving in my car... Read More

Time Management - Working Smarter at Work

Let's look at your time management skills. Most of us... Read More

Delegate or Drown

Why waste your precious time working on tasks, which are... Read More

How Do You Start Your Day

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow... Read More

Peace Of Mind At The Workplace

Work brings together people of different characters and behavior, and... Read More

You Cant Buy Time

Our daily lives are inundated with a crammed to-do list.... Read More

Overcoming Procrastination

Procrastination, the habit of putting tasks off to the last... Read More

Sprint Through Your Workday, Even if Youre a Marathoner

Whenever you have projects that can't be done in one... Read More