By Anne Funke
In our society, it’s not often we feel encouraged to prioritize our own needs before others. Maybe we work in a helping profession, are a caregiver, or have simply been conditioned to believe that caring for others first is “right.” For a long time, we’ve seen self-care and selfish as the same thing, and only recently have we begun to pay closer attention to how important it is to fill our own bucket. The second pillar of the KCG social-emotional framework is Choose Yourself. While self-care (positive self-interest) is a concept that falls within this pillar, there is so much more to choosing ourselves than this.
When we move from Know Yourself to Choose Yourself, we begin to feel like we can navigate our emotions more clearly. In other words, we own our emotions, and they no longer own us. We also begin to realize that motivation matters, and we align with what motivates us intrinsically to make healthier happier choices for ourselves and others. As we become more emotionally aware, we in turn act more thoughtfully, compassionately, and with purpose. Who doesn’t want that!
Choosing ourselves means choosing our responses, choosing our commitments, and choosing to act in ways that better ourselves, others, and our communities. We take ourselves out of autopilot and pay attention, mindfully, to our emotions, thoughts, and actions. Not only this, but we being to realize that our emotions, thoughts, and actions all affect each other, all the time!
How can you choose to be kind to yourself today? How can you begin to do what you mean to do, purposefully? And most importantly, how can you make choices that align with the best version of yourself?
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