Not all days are days to PUSH yourself E107
August 22, 2023
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Today I share with you a huge lesson learned in my lifetime. And a huge change I made in my life and in my personality. And a tool that guides me through this change every single day. All will be revealed in this episode. So join me!
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In my old life until a few years ago I was an expert in pushing myself. I would push myself to work more. I would guilt-trip myself into doing more and doing it better. To be honest, I would push myself in my progress – well, the progress I thought I needed in my life, as in my career, my skills, my development – and then a higher salary, a better job title, and higher status in the company I worked for.
And sure there are good reasons why we push ourselves. Humans have a natural tendency to expand and grow. We are curious to learn new things and encounter new experiences. We get bored with the status quo and once we achieve something we want to move on to the next target or goal. And that in itself is beautiful and exciting.
My Push Push Push Mentality was not healthy
But what I have realized is that my push push push mentality did not come from the natural interest in growing and expanding. It felt more like an obligation, a desperate need. Like something was missing in my life and through pushing myself I could find that missing piece.
If I did not push myself, I did not feel worthy. If I did not do something, be productive or work towards a goal, then I wasn’t valuable or worthy to be alive. That sounds maybe a bit much to you, I get that. But ask yourself: Do you feel worthy just by being? If you took away the tasks you set yourself for this life: your job, your career, maybe your business, raising your children, being a supportive life partner – if you took this away, would you feel worthy and enough?
Look at what is behind you pushing yourself
This might be an odd question to think about. It can sound a bit extreme. But asking yourself this question can give you the chance to look closer. Do you feel worthy and whole just by being you? Or do you not and rather try to fill this gap through achievements, success, more money, a bigger house or a higher status?
And the reason I want you to look closer at the way you live your life is that we can make ourselves sick through this push, push, push mindset.
Pushing myself made me burn out
Pushing myself constantly and my efforts never being enough, got me to burnout which one day I thankfully took seriously. Serious enough to make fundamental changes. If I didn’t back then who knows what kind of stress and lifestyle-related illness I could have developed like cancer, a stroke or a heart attack?
Does this resonate with you? Do you see yourself in some of my descriptions? If so, listen up carefully. Take this as a sign to question your current way of living. And ask yourself:
- Can you truly relax and be happy with yourself doing nothing?
- Are the reasons you push yourself in your career or your business aligned with your highest purpose? Or are they more of what you think you are supposed to be doing because everyone else is doing it?
- If somebody told you to take it slow today for the benefit of your overall health, could you actually do it? Be honest with yourself.
Learning how to rest and recover now
I can be honest with myself that I would not have listened to somebody telling me to take it slower – until I had my burnout which was kind of my wake-up call.
I then had to learn to rest and I am still learning to rest and be fine with it. It takes a while to deprogram all of those beliefs that formed my life in the way I lived it. It takes energy and dedication to let go of that old thinking and therefore the old personality and to create and come up with a new personality.
The one tool that helps me each day is the *SORCE App
But the one tool that helped me a lot over the last 1.5 years has been the *SORCE App. Through this App, I am able to check the health of my nervous system. It can tell me if I need to take it slow and give my nervous system a rest. Or it tells me that my nervous system is fine and I can go about my day as usual. Or if I have lots of energy available and can therefore push myself.
And that message from my nervous system is all-encompassing for me. It’s not just about my physical energy on that day and therefore just a decision if I work out or not. The strength or weakness of my nervous system has a huge impact on my mental health.
Making adjustments every day by taking my HRV
And that realisation allows me to make adjustments each day. In the past, I would have associated energy mainly with my physical abilities or resources and not so much with my mental resources. So I would always push myself mentally which was the biggest part of my job working in HR, never realizing that this is as tiring as putting strain on my physical body.
Since using SORCE in the last 1.5 years I got used to listening to my nervous system and taking it more seriously. I have many examples where the results of my taking the HRV (Heart Rate Variability) score through the SORCE App were more intelligent than how I felt and thought I was.
Examples of my nervous system being more intelligent
Just this week, I had a day where I scored very highly and got a PUSH day. But I felt weak in the morning. But I knew that I had the energy available to go through whatever my body decided to go through on that day.
I still took it slower and looked after my energy, but by the time it was afternoon, I felt so much better and was able to work on a big project and even attend several calls in the evening. I would not have thought that that is how my day would end up, but my nervous system knew better.
And then the next day, I woke up and actually felt really well. But my HRV score was really low and told me that this is a RECOVER day for me. So I listened to that message and looked after my energy. I initially planned to work in the garden because suddenly the weeks of rain stopped, but I decided to move that to the next day.
Instead of working on several tasks for the day, I decided to just do one and leave it at that. If I would ignore the message, I know now that this has an impact further down the line on my overall energy levels and my health.
Check out the SORCE App for your daily energy message
So if you are looking for something that can give you a message each day on how much energy you truly have available, then get the SORCE App. I would not want to live without any more. I take my score every morning and it has been so valuable to get me to recover from more difficult and stressful periods in my life.
Most of us are not enough tuned into our health and well-being to be the judge of how well our nervous system is doing. So having a reliable and scientific fact given to you each morning helps you tremendously to raise your resilience and available energy overall.
You can find the link to the *SORCE App here. And with the App, you get so much more support than just taking your HRV score. So go and check it out for yourself!
*The SORCE App is sadly not available anymore for direct end-users.
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You Might Also Like
- Stop the Push, Push, Push way of living and create balance Episode 74
- Checking in with my nervous system once per day Episode 70
- Connect with your inner SORCE with Jessica Corbin Episode 64
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