Self care, like many aspects of working life, is not innate; it is a skill that needs to be nurtured as part of our professional development. Sadly, it is often also a skill that gets overlooked until we hit a crisis point.
When I first joined AWS I took an unusual tack in my interview. In response to a question about productivity, I explained that early in my career I had recognised two inescapable facts about myself; I was both lazy and disorganised.
After a brief, suitably dramatic pause I continued; having come to this realisation, I then went on to develop compensatory mechanisms. I honed and polished these mechanisms over decades, until I was considered thought leader on productivity and time management. This was an example of moving from a skill-less state to skill mastery through a process of self-awareness, conscious choice, and endless practice. I suspect we all have our own examples of similar personal transformation.
The same was not true with my self care.
Like many in IT, I’m something of a people pleaser: when asked to do something, my default position is to say yes, and that can be to my own detriment.
In 2013 I started a new role, with (amongst other things) responsibility for introducing new ITSM tooling, and organisational change. Within a few weeks, the person responsible for the company’s ISO27001 deployment left, and I agreed to take on ownership of that, too. Both were full-time jobs. And, as icing on the cake, my dad then suffered a serious mental illness, and was subsequently diagnosed with dementia.
And of course, determined to say yes to everything, I soldiered on, trying to juggle everything, and of course, it was too much. Totally overwhelmed by work and home stresses, I hit burnout, and crashed to an uncontrolled halt.
Therapy provided me with perspective: in hindsight, I’d set myself impossibly high standards. I came to realise that no-one can be at 100%, 100% of the time. It is not weak to ask for help, but a sign of strength. All of that should have been entirely obvious to me, but because I’d never invested time into developing that essential skill of self care, I had been completely oblivious until it was too late. I’d missed all the warning signs, lacked the mechanisms to pull myself clear, and spiralled instead into crisis.
I’ve spent a great deal of time since reflecting on and rectifying that mistake. I’ve sought out experts to teach me good practice, and I’ve applied those lessons, over and over again, until they’ve become second nature.
Through a particular lens, our lives can be seen as a series of choices about prioritisation. Our professional and personal successes depend upon us making the right choices, selecting the right priorities, to flourish in the long term.
I’d suggest that investing time into developing the skills necessary to take care of ourselves over the long term is one of the most important choices we will ever make.
