Taking care v self-sabotage
Know when to chill, but also recognize when you're just procrastinating
Consider the difference between needing to stop writing and rest as an act of self-care versus self-sabotage just as you’re doing the thing you want so badly to do even though it feels out of your comfort zone.
Remember that self-care isn’t really about the acts of luxury as consumerism would have us believe; it is more about what we need to keep going. Or, as a recent Harvard Business Review piece put it, self care is about “resilience, not indulgence.” So, maybe that means needing a good night’s sleep instead of staying up late to write one night.
But also relentlessly interrogate yourself about this difference, and note self-sabotage disguised as self-care. Maybe that “needing to go to bed early” really turned into laying around doom-scrolling instead of writing, because, deep down, there was uncertainty or fear or low confidence or a sense of being frozen by uncertainty. In which case, call yourself out by taking one micro-step in the direction of what you really want: writing a sentence, writing a pitch, figuring out the right editor to pitch, tapping out a rough first draft of the speech you want to give, finding examples of evidence for your op-ed. You get the idea. Fear grows quickly, so deflate it fast.
