Why Do I Struggle To Put Myself First?

When I decided to set up this blog I thought it would be so easy.
After all I enjoy writing and how hard can it be to write about activities I’ve enjoyed, places I’ve been to or to express an opinion about something?
The answer is Hard! Sometimes Very Hard!

Why? Because even though I’m a midlife adventurer who has retired from full time employment, finding time for myself is still no easier. Sometimes I wonder how I ever had time to go to work!

I’ve read several articles on the subject of “Putting yourself first” and attempted to delve into the reasons why this might be the case for me but I still find it so hard. I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s a learnt behaviour. The good news is anything learnt can be unlearnt but where to start? How has this learnt behaviour come about?

For me it’s that “Manager and Mum” syndrome that I’ve spoken about previously in my posts.
I was a single Mum for thirteen years with two children to raise. I got up each day as a “Mum’ and tried to ensure my children had a nourishing breakfast before getting them ready for school, dropping them off and then changing “hats”.
Heading back to my car I would take off the “Mum” hat and put on the “Manager” hat and head off to work for a minimum of eight hours. I was fortunate to afford a daily nanny but she only worked when I was working and the children weren’t at school. Anytime outside of this I swapped “hats” again and became “Mum”.
Don’t get me wrong I loved spending time with my children. The school holidays were an absolute joy because on my day off I didn’t have to put an alarm clock on to wake us up and we just got up when we woke up.
I got myself in a rhythm. As soon as the day arrived each year when we could book our holidays for the forthcoming year my pre-prepared holiday applications went in. It tended to work on a “first come, first served” basis and with plenty of paid holiday to take I would book February Half Term, May Half Term, October Half Term, two weeks in the school Summer Holiday and one week at Easter. This still left me an odd week to take elsewhere or break down into days if I needed them at short notice should one of the children become ill.

Holidays at Christmas, a busy period in the entertainment and gaming industry, were off limits so I would ensure I was off at least a half day on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day when we were closed and Boxing Day and then would happily work New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
It was far from easy and as previously mentioned, in one of my early posts, when I was asked how to describe my life on a company development course I attended, I quite aptly described myself as “a professional juggler”. I often had so many balls in the air that it wasn’t a case of being careful not to drop one but more a case of which one to catch first!

I had little or no familial support as the first ten years of their lives was spent on the opposite side of the country to my own family. I smile these days when I listen to millennial parents talking about “date nights” or “a night away” where grandparents look after their children so they can be alone together. Maybe this is the future, maybe divorce rates for this new group of parents will decrease because they understand the need to spend time together as a couple without the children in tow.
The first time I left my children to do something for myself, a weekend away in Jersey, was when my oldest child was about eight years old and that came about because I had a really good daily nanny who also became a friend and offered to give me this time off.

Days off in the week were spent catching up on the normal boring household tasks like housework, washing, food shopping and home admin.
Days off at the weekend or in school holidays were centred around the children. I always strived to give them as normal a life as I could despite being a single parent. In school holidays when I was working I would take every Wednesday off so the children knew that at least one day during the week we would always have time together to go out and enjoy ourselves. I tried to keep a balance between paid days out like theme parks, bowling, cinema etc and free days out where we would go walking, have a picnic, visit country parks and immerse ourselves in nature etc. It was important for them to grow up understanding that fun wasn’t only associated with money.

In the days before computer diaries existed I also remember keeping a Filofax where I would keep a track of my life by writing entries associated with the children like parents evenings, nativity plays, children’s birthday parties etc in red.
Red, because it stood out and my children were a priority. I spent a lot of time each week away from them and key events in their life were really important to me.
Entries associated with work were in orange and those relevant to my own life like doctor’s appts or the odd coffee with a friend when the children were at school were in green.

When I reflect upon this life I can blatantly see why “putting myself first” wasn’t a priority. I simply didn’t have the time. I barely had time to fit everything in. If I was working a full day, returning home between 11.30 pm and 12.30 a.m. was not unusual. The children would be fast asleep in bed and my alarm still went off at 6.20 a.m. regardless to get up and start again.

I know I am not unique. There are hundreds of parents out there in a similar situation or worse but maybe that is why so many of us Mums are rubbish at putting ourselves first.
On the odd occasion when I was so tired that I would return from the school run, make a cup of tea and then find myself engrossed in a good book or a series I might have recorded on TV, I remember putting down the book or switching off the television and feeling incredibly guilty. Guilty that I had wasted time that I should have spent doing other home related stuff.
Guilt wouldn’t be the only feeling though. I would also feel stressed later because, by not attending to my home workload, I would have doubled my tasks for my next day off or have to catch up in the evening when the children were in bed. There always seemed to be a price to pay for putting myself first!
When I used to discuss my dilemma with friends they often used to ask me “What happens when you run out of steam? Who will take care of the children then? I never had an answer and to be honest it didn’t really resonate with me so nothing changed.

So given my history and this learnt behaviour how do I start to change this now I’m retired? Slowly!
It takes time to plan self-care and often you’ve already run out of time in the day and its bedtime before you know it. Then you’re restless and not sleeping properly because all those thoughts go through your head about the things you didn’t get done today and what’s facing you tomorrow. You beat yourself up because you feel like you’ve failed or you’re not on top of everything. This behaviour becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and begins to feel like the hamster wheel that you can’t get off.

I have tried so many times to address this issue since I’ve been retired. What I have realised is that the more I do and the less I take time for myself the more unhappy I become, so it is becoming important to find a solution.

I know that trying to take a moment for myself doesn’t work. I might sit down with a cup of tea with the intention of taking a breather and then a thought will pop into my head about getting something done or I’ll notice something in the room that needs doing. Then instead of staying in the moment, relaxing and enjoying my tea, I’ll get up and do whatever it is I’ve thought about and once again I’m on the go and that break in my day is lost.

That also applies to taking holidays. When I was working it was very hard to take a holiday at home because it never turned into a holiday, it just became another long list of things to do that I’d not had time to do in normal life. That still somewhat applies now I’m retired. We had made plans, in our joint retirement for example, to go out one day a week, spend time together doing something we enjoyed. Since last September we’ve probably done this about half a dozen times!

During my working life I often had to make changes to the way I worked maybe because some legality changed or my new direct report had a different way of working so I know I’m capable of change.
I always found the “divide the cake up into slices” worked for me. Trying to manage a complete change all in one go didn’t work but break it down into a dozen smaller tasks and address them one by one and it did.
I’m in the process of trying this at the moment. My previous post ” New Year’s Resolutions Have Come Early this Year” highlights the changes I need to make to my health and wellbeing in order to self medicate my osteoarthritis and I’m gradually delivering on these by addressing one change at a time and then gradually building on this. Admittedly this will take me longer to deliver the whole plan than if I did it all at once but the end goal is to deliver and I know if I try and make all the changes at once which all require me to focus upon myself I’ll fail, so gently does it.

I think one of the other failings of putting yourself first is that its such an alien concept to you that you don’t actually know what you need, what will help you or even what will make you happy.
Ultimately that is the first thing I’ve realised I need to figure out.
My priority over the last couple of weeks has been to switch off the television in the evening. We never watch it when we are away travelling so why do we do it when we are at home?
I’ve then been using this time to start doing some hobbies which have ranged from Sodoku to knitting whilst listening to my many unopened vinyl records to reading to learn. I have a few specific topics that I’ve always wanted to learn more about. I’ve bought the books when we’ve been away travelling or received them as Christmas/ birthday gifts and they have just sat on the bookshelf. I’ve now taken them down, dusted them off and begun to read and increase my knowledge.
When I was talking to a single friend recently she enlightened me that the reason I’ve not adopted hobbies, in the past, is probably because I’ve had children. She looks around at all her friends with families and has noticed this trend.
Parents particularly Mums, and even more single Mums, spend so much time amusing their children and catching up on mundane tasks after their children are in bed, that they don’t have personal hobbies.
This same friend is loving retirement because she is spending even more time than she did when she was working doing things she enjoys and increasing both her hobby time and the hobbies she does. It sounds so simple but what a revelation that conversation was to me!

I feel she is right also in that no one knows exactly what you need but you. But what if you’ve never had the time to figure that out because you have spent all your time running around ticking off those home to-do-lists and caring for family? What if you’ve never lost yourself in an enthralling hobby that has caused you to totally lose track of time because you couldn’t afford to lose track of time?
Furthermore when you don’t know what you need, what hobbies you enjoy and therefore what makes you happy then the people around you soak up your time because they are used to you having that time for them.

I’ve actually started to take time for myself in the mornings. This feels really rewarding after previously rushing out of bed to the sound of the alarm. Now I have a cup of tea in bed whilst catching up on my social media or reading a book/magazine. It sets me up far better for the day ahead. When I have to get up, grab a shower, dress and get out the door I feel so rushed and it can actually put me in a bad mood for the rest of the morning.

I love a bubble bath. I think this also stems from being a single Mum. To run a bath, chill out and read a book particularly of an evening when the children were asleep always felt like an enjoyable indulgence. It’s something I’m trying to consciously do more of. It’s like hanging up a sign on the bathroom door and saying “I’m Not Available or Do Not Disturb”. People just leave you alone. Peace n quiet!

One thing that does work for me is to pencil in time for myself to do something specific. For example I often find writing a post is easier if no one else is at home or if I can take myself off to a coffee shop. It allows me to focus on what I’m doing and I don’t suffer the aftermath guilt because I’m proud of what I have produced and posted.

As time moves on and I begin to enter what is probably the last quarter of my life, being in control of my time and maximising my happiness becomes even more important. I’ve never wanted to be one of those people who vegetate at home, whiling away my time and basically sitting in God’s waiting room. It’s really important to me to do things I enjoy.

Whilst we have no major trips planned this year, we have decided to pursue a number of one day events that we’ve previously expressed an interest in but rarely if ever managed to go and do. I guess you could call them mini adventures.
We managed that this week when we took my daughter, as part of her birthday celebrations, to the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” exhibition which is currently on tour and available quite local to us. The photos included in this post are all from there.

One other idea that lies dormant in my mind is rekindling something I used to do before I met my husband, when my children were old enough to be left on their own for a few days, and that is to get away on my own.
I enjoy my own company and sometimes still crave that “alone time”. It’s like your own personal adventure. Time to think, to relax, to not have to think about anyone else and most of all to chuck away the clock. Have you ever tried that?
Have you ever got up when you wake up with no regard to the time, eaten when you are hungry and not because its lunchtime or dinnertime, gone to sleep when you are tired and not because its bedtime. It’s a very freeing experience to return to a simple life when the time of day was not relevant and everything was governed by nature. Perhaps I’ll do that again one day, put myself first and take myself off on my own little adventure……..