The Art of Maintenance
Redefining radical self-care as a self-leadership skill
Hi and welcome to another free post from ‘Something More’. I’m Caroline Ferguson, mindset trainer, speaker, therapist and your companion on this wander through mindset and self-leadership – with the odd slice of life thrown in.
How are you looking after yourself?
I’m blessed with wonderful friends. Due to my recent nomadic lifestyle and the fact that my dozen or so really close friends are scattered around the world, we don’t get to meet often, or even speak all that regularly. When we do, I always come away feeling buoyed, inspired, comforted, replenished.
I had two of those glorious catch-ups last week (thank you, my darlings) and they’ve refilled my energy tanks. During our chats, both of these wonderful women said, “I hope you’re looking after yourself”. I was able to reassure them that indeed I am. Self-care is a non-negotiable for me these days, though that hasn’t always been the case.
A while back, I created a framework for the self-leadership work I do with mindset training clients.
One of the four pillars for becoming the master of my fate and captain of my soul (as self-leadership is so beautifully described in William Ernest Henley’s poem, Invictus) is MAINTENANCE. I’ll talk about the other three pillars in future articles.
The basis of Maintenance is radical self-care – something I hadn’t paid consistent attention to up to then. I knew I needed to walk my talk and commit to taking better care of myself if I was going to, with any integrity, guide and support clients to become more effective leaders of themselves.
First, I had to define what self-care means. Yes, there are the obvious factors around physical health and fitness, but it also encompasses mental, emotional, spiritual, creative and social wellbeing.
Every single one of those areas in my life needed attention.
Some of the changes I needed to make didn’t come naturally, and I had to push through inner resistance at times because putting my wellbeing first felt counter to my values.
Going deeper revealed the shadow side of those values, and the damage done by decades of believing I had to prioritise the needs of others.
I heard a radio interview with an Asian philanthropist.
It was many years ago and I wish I could honour him by remembering his name because I’ve quoted what he said so many times since then.
A standard question the interviewer would ask in that series of interviews was:
‘If the house was on fire, would you save the baby or save yourself?’
The guests inevitable answered, ‘I’d save the baby’, as if that was what was expected of a decent person.
But not this man. Vehemently he replied, ‘I would save myself, of course! If I can’t rescue myself, how on earth can I save the baby?’
His response jolted me because it was so refreshingly contrary to the path of self-sacrifice I was on, but he still fully embraced social responsibility.
His words stayed with me and were part of the inspiration when I started developing the self-leadership framework.
If anyone reading this heard the interview (must be 20 years ago) and knows who the guy was, please let me know because I’d love to thank him.
Back to self-care as a pillar of self-leadership.
It took me a while to fully get to grips with the fact that taking care of myself isn’t self-indulgence, it’s a necessity.
As adults, it’s crucial that we give ourselves full permission to look after our wellbeing in a 360-degree way. If we eat healthily and go to the gym regularly, but put up with a relationship that destroys our emotional health, that is not self-care. Neither is investing years of precious time in a job that stifles our creativity; or bending our identity to fit others’ ideas of who we should be.
We have the right to choose to prioritise our wellbeing. Once I started to properly believe that, my resistance got out of the way. Self-care stopped being something I thought of as indulgence and became a sacred duty and a source of deep pleasure.
Join our next live coaching session to elevate your self-care
For our next group-coaching session for paying subscribers on 25th June, I had planned a fun exercise that involves telling your life story. On researching further, I realise we’ll need two sessions for that one. Since we always take a break from coaching in July, I’ve decided to postpone that exercise until later in the year.
Instead, for June’s session, each participant will plot out exactly what effective maintenance looks like for them, and how near or far they are to achieving it.
If you’ve done the goal-setting exercise I run in January, it will follow a similar format. You’ll come away with a very clear idea of what needs to change in your life and what actions you can take to prioritise your wellbeing. We’ll finish with a powerful manifesto to help you embrace your right to look after yourself.
You’ll get the most benefit if you attend live (the sessions take place from 8:00pm to 9:15pm UK time), though a recording will be available.
If you’re not already a paying member and you’d like to join us, upgrade for a month or the whole year by clicking the button:
That’s all for this week. I’d love to hear how you’re taking care of your own maintenance and whether it’s changed over the years – please feel free to share your experience in the comments.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, let’s commit to saving ourselves (and then saving the baby). Sending love to you all,
