Are you accountable to others and not to yourself? Always doing fully and quickly for everyone else who asks, never getting around to doing things for yourself? Always putting others’ needs, wants and desires before your own?
You might be saying, no, you’re not like that at all, but here’s a test. Is there something you keep telling yourself you want that you don’t yet have, or that you haven’t even started to go after?
Do you want a better job, and yet you don’t go looking for one out of fear that you won’t find something that will pay the bills as well as this one does and you feel obligated to bring home that much bacon? Or do you simply not look because you work straight through lunch, late every night and you’re too exhausted by the end of the day?
Do you want to be in a loving, romantic, committed relationship and yet tell yourself that you don’t have time to go online or, worse yet, you don’t have time to date? Are you saying this while you are driving across town to bring your child the lunch he forgot or the cleats she failed to put in her gym bag?
Have you heard of WIIFM? What’s in it for me? It’s usually a term we hear in relation to negotiations – each side is looking to maximize its own outcome. What if we need to start asking that question when we self-negotiate?
In order to change your circumstances and finally create the important things you want in your own life you must develop your ability to be accountable to yourself. You must put yourself first at least some of the time. And you must make time in your life to date!
By the end of that ridiculously long day I bet your boss has already gone home to his or her own family – and you’re going home to a frozen dinner and Netflix rather than a dinner date with a fabulous man.
I get it. It’s different with your kids, right? You want to teach them responsibility and you want to shield them from ever feeling a negative emotion so you think you have to drop whatever you’re doing and cater to their every need. Smart Girl, I have a question for you:
If you really want children to learn responsibility is it best for you to drive laps around town like a messenger service so there are no negative repercussions to their actions? Or is it better for him to have to use his allowance to buy lunch in the cafeteria or for her to sit out one game so you can go on a lunch date with a possible future mate?
Why should your boss plan ahead when she knows you’ll stay late to do something she could have asked you for weeks ago? Why would your children ever remember anything if they know Mom’s Messenger Service is only a txt away? If you really want to teach your children to be responsible you are going to have to let them step up and be … responsible! Their lives (and the lives of everyone else they ever meet) will be so much better if they are.
Sometimes, in addition to asking yourself, “What’s in it for me if I do this thing?” you also have to ask yourself, “What’s in it for me, or others, if I don’t?”
When we get into the habit of always putting others ahead of ourselves we forget that people, adults and children alike, are more resilient than we allow ourselves to believe. Here’s some straight talk for you, Smart Girl – if you don’t stop putting others ahead of yourself you will never have a different life. Ever.
Do you desire more love in your life? You can have more love!
Do you want to have more fun dating? You can have more fun!
Don’t know where to start or how to get to the next rung of the relationship ladder? I would love to help! Please contact me at info@lenaehrenberg.com and we can schedule a free, 20 minute phone call so that you can tell me what you believe is holding you back and I can offer you at least one, specific, action you can take that will change your results.
What if today is the day you take an action that propels you forward into the rest of your happy, loving, romantic life!
Right now, take a moment and affirm to yourself:
I take the best care I can of others when I first take the best care I can of myself!