In today’s day and age, women are overwhelmed with a slew of responsibilities and commitments to manage. From excelling in the professional world to taking care of our kids, there’s really never a shortage of things to do.
Amidst all this, it can become easy (and let’s be honest, convenient) to disregard our own wellbeing in favor of everything else. For many women, it’s gotten to the point where self-care has been reduced to a luxury — something that’s ‘nice to have’ yet not essential for holistic success.
This is untrue.
In this article, we’ll review our most recent chat with Lisa Druxman, and explore the notion of treating your wellbeing as a tool in your ultimate success.
Getting To Know Lisa Druxman
A fitness professional with ten years of experience, Lisa Druxman is the founder and CEO of FIT4MOM, a prenatal and postnatal fitness program that helps moms get back in shape after having children.
It was inspired by her own experience after having her first child, when she admits she felt at a loss for direction and support when it came to nursing and sleeping.
“I knew nothing about motherhood, which is so funny since I now live and breathe it both at home and work.”
Combining her personal skills in fitness with the community she needed, Lisa came up with a class called ‘Stroller Strides’ — a stroller-based, full body workout designed specifically for moms. And while many came for the exercise, she quickly saw that participants stayed in and valued the class for the social support it provided.
Today, Lisa has capitalized upon this common need for connection and support, and has built an entire empire around it. FIT4MOM offers fitness programs for every stage of motherhood, has over 300 franchisees and 2000 classes across the country.
On Prioritizing Wellbeing
For so many hard-working women, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and grind of everyday life. And while there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, it’s important to remember that your health should always come first.
This is something we discussed with Lisa directly during our chat. How can we exceed in what’s important to us while still prioritizing self-care?
According to her, it has less to do with ‘balance’ and more with strategic planning.
“My strategy is focusing on what are the three most important areas of your life, and then everything else needs to maybe not be as important. And so we build our schedule, we build our strategy for living around those most important things.”
In other words, if your wellbeing is a top priority, make sure that the time you have throughout the day revolve around it.
“I think time is always the answer. And so I am very, very purposeful and holding my time sacred.” She says.
Holding Your Wellbeing Sacred
Many working women are familiar with the symptoms of burnout: fatigue, anxiety, depression, and irritability. And while many of us wouldn’t have a problem with taking a break, few see a tangible purpose for or way of doing it.
Lisa says she believes it’s due to a lack of selfishness, and an innate inclination among women to put everything else above their own needs.
“I think as women — forgive me for saying this, I think we tend to be martyrs. We’re so busy taking care of everyone else that we forget to take care of ourselves. And that’s just a formula for living in an overwhelmed state that doesn’t feel good.”
And it makes sense. Throughout history, women have been considered the caretakers — of their homes, their children, and often times, their husbands. It’s only recently that this stereotype has begun to shift, with more and more women taking on leadership positions in the workforce.
But even with this change, it can be difficult to break away from the ‘martyr’ mentality. After all, it’s what we’ve been socialized to believe is our role.
Lisa’s advice? Take the same approach to your wellbeing as you would anything else in your life.
“As a businesswoman, you are probably really, really good at holding your commitments with others, right? If you tell me you’re going to be on this call at five o’clock, you’re going to hold that commitment. You need to treat yourself with that same commitment level.”
This means saying ‘no’ to a lot of things. The time on our schedules is finite, and while we may have a surplus of things to fill them with, they should never come before what we value most.
Yes, catching up with friends over coffee would be great, but by saying ‘yes’ to it, what are you saying ‘no’ to?
“I think a lot of holding your time sacred is really starting to say yes to the things that are most important, but getting in the practice of a kind of a polite, ‘no.’ I’d love to help you. I’d love to go to coffee with you. I can’t tell you how many friends that I’d love to see, but I’m really protecting my time.”
The Value In Putting Yourself First
During our discussion, we also touched on the notion of how our use of time reflects on the greater quality of our lives. If we’re not managing our priorities in a healthy way, what does that say about our success? The examples we’re setting for our children? Our greater legacies?
“One of the most powerful things I did last year was I took Facebook and Instagram off my phone.” She says. “And that was really hard to do, especially because social media is such a big part of our business. But I said, know what? I can check it on my computer once a day. It has given me so much more space. Now I practice Italian every day.”
Self-care is not a luxury — it’s a necessity. It’s something that we need to do in order to function at our best. Not only that, but it’s also the key to maintaining balance in our lives. Lisa’s insight is just one example of how making small changes in the way we use our time can have a big impact on our overall wellbeing.
Originally published at https://www.joyadass.com.
