The Role of Self Love in Your Career

This retreat was called “compassionate accountability,” and our coaches designed workshops around this theme to deliver at our annual client-only retreat. At the end we had a group coaching session in which we asked about takeaways and how this retreat had changed the way clients thought about their work. There was some very vulnerable sharing and I wanted to bring some of those themes out. 

Productivity

One client shared how much more productive she had become through the Navigate program, and how she was able to squeeze so much more work out of her 60-hour work week. By the end she had realized that becoming more skilled at managing her time was the wrong way to go about it. Instead, she wanted more spaciousness and ease in her day rather than just more production. That was a great realization of self love. 

“I can be better at my work… and I can do it in a way that shows compassion for myself.”

Think about how you can reframe your desire to be more productive in the light of self love/self compassion and think about how you want the experience of being an academic to feel. 

Rest

We asked clients to think about the role of rest and play in their work, and how to create motivation when you have lost it. For some, it caused them to ask the question of “Who am I if I’m not this overworked stressed out person who is running all of the time?” Some didn’t even know what they would do/what kind of rest they would choose if they weren’t this overly busy person. 

“Realizing you lost who you were… and that you need to refind that person is scary… but the kind of scary that is exciting.”

If you give that new identity the space and love to grow, I bet that person is going to be even more awesome than the stressed out busy version of you.

Consider who you are. How have you attached business to your identity? If you give yourself the self appreciation/self love that you really deserve… who would you be? 

“How can you create the space for loving and appreciating yourself and treating yourself with compassion in your career?”

Suggestions of Self Love

What kind of activities really fill you up? Don’t make excuses about why you can’t do them, love yourself and do them.

There is this notion of “productive rest” in which you need to be learning or doing something while you are “resting.”  I encourage you to figure out something that absolutely delights you.

“You have permission to have completely unproductive rest.” 

You are going to be a better academic when you begin to do these things and you will be a happier person. 

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