Who’s number 1 in your life?

This is a question we all need to ask ourselves from time to time and hopefully in most cases the answer is you? Now this may sound a little selfish, particularly if you have small children, but in order to achieve a healthy and happy balance in your life you must make time for yourself. An excellent analogy for this is to imagine on a table in front of you are a small glass jar, a number of small stones and one large stone. Now if you pile all the small stones into the jar first, there will not be enough room for the large stone to fit in at the end. However if you place the large stone in first, all the small stones will fit in around it. Of course in this analogy you are the large stone and all the other priorities in your life are the smaller stones.

Some people are already very good at achieving this balance and can easily put their own needs ahead of others and these people tend to be happier and better functioning people as a result. On the other hand, there are people (especially mothers) who put everyone else’s needs before their own and these people tend to often feel exhausted, drained, resentful or just plain cranky.

The irony of this situation is, while you may be perceived as selfish by putting yourself first, failing to place your basic needs such as health, self care, exercise and time alone before the needs of others actually tends to make people function at a level that is far below their best. As a result of this, the people closest to us or of most importance, whether that be family, friends, clients or associates do not get to interact with us when we are at our best, so at the end of the day nobody wins.

Generally people can be put into two categories either ‘me for me’ people or ‘me for you’ people. Those in the first category tend to self care first as they know they will then be at their best for others. Unfortunately those in the second category tend to be forever chasing their tails. So in concluding I urge you all to place that ‘big rock’ into your jar first and let everything else fall into place around it.

To find out exactly what part of your life you need to focus on to make sure you are at your best for others why not fill out a Lifestyle Health Check. This will show you what you can work on today to make sure number 1 in your life is looked after first.