Sense of responsibility -Strength or weakness?

Today morning, I was interacting with three super women of 60, 45 and 35 and I noticed a common denominator as their strength, their sense of responsibility.

The other side I also observed, stress, burn out, sense of feeling overwhelmed leading to high blood pressure, headache, leading to medication.

The reason for me to sit and write this, is to address all of us and all other responsible human out there. While, I mentioned about women, I have also seen similar traits amongst everybody, so it is not gender driven, it is also across geographical boundaries, I have heard this from clients across the globe, so sense of responsibility is human virtue or strength, when overstretched can become a vice or weakness.

Many years back I did a Strengths finder assessment and found responsibility as one of my top strengths too.

This is what they defined responsibility as - ‘Your responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name depends on it if some reason you are not able to deliver you automatically start to look for ways to make it up for the other person. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.’

Based on my work with many super humans, over the years, whose sense of responsibility towards others are high and it can affect their personal well-being their life leading to at times to.

·??????’Work seems to keep flowing in with no breathing space, with no control on my own day and life;’?

·??????I feel restless and anxious that I am not focusing on what I really want to do.?

·??????It seems everyone needs a piece of me, there are these others who have so much comfortable life, why can’t I have one.

I learn a lot from my clients who I engage with, and a few takeaways from how to deal with is below.

When they make a list of all their responsibilities, in their surprise they find they have missed responsibility towards their own self??, they also see that if they don’t take care of themselves ,they will not be able to take care of others .As many thought leaders have given the example of the flight instructions – put the oxygen musk on you before helping others .

Then they design their personal strategies, few I learned from them are?

1.?????Practice affirmation of self-care, - as Mahua in her mirror wrote – ‘Self-care is not selfish ‘?

2.?????Focus on circle of control, and not focus on circle of concern (refer Stephen Covey)

3.?????Learn to say No, and to say yes, to those which are aligned to their vision and path.

Please feel free to add any other strategies to the list and let us build this list together to have a Responsible human who also takes care of themselves.

#selfcoaching #lifecoaching #selfcare