Do We Do For Ourselves AND For Our Families?… Or Do We Let (Cause) Others To Do It?
What do you think? How are you in taking care of self AND others? Not well enough because of laziness, carelessness, low self-esteem, busyness, and/or other factors?
It is important to have balance in this, especially if we live with others in a household.
We talked about the extreme of over-control of things. Now we are going in the other direction in being careless in dealing with ourselves. There are many factors involved here from self-esteem issues to abuse to insecurity, etc. However, all the same, it still exists for whatever reason. The results are someone who doesn’t take care of themselves either outwardly or inwardly or both. They may say things like “I got what I deserve”, “I’m no good and worthless”, “That’s what I get”, “No one else loves me so why should I”, “who cares”, even “I don’t deserve any better” idea. Even though these words don’t come out of their mouths all the time, occasionally it does or they may think it and their actions show it. A person may never pick up after themselves just because of laziness. However, perhaps they also don’t do it because of the “who cares” attitude.
Overall, there must be a balance to caring for yourself and others who you are responsible for. Let’s look at the steps below.
Steps to accomplish a balanced “Doing For Ourselves WHILE Doing For Others”
- Meet together to consider everyone’s needs in the planning…
Ask and converse openly to find out what their needs are.
- Set a plan to include all others’ needs in the household… including
children. Be sure that everyone is a part of the planning process.
- Prioritize the list of duties.
- Don’t try to do it all yourself.
- Ask for help.
- Give choices of what can be done.
For example: not everyone can balance a budget.
- Be fair in the duties, you do the hard and/or dirty work too.
- Be clear and concise in what needs to be done.
For example: Someone else may need to look for work outside of
the home while another person just take care of the laundry. So,
let them know exactly what is needed.
- Don’t micro-supervise…
- Don’t supervise if he or she is an adult.
- Don’t constantly look over the shoulder.
- Allow them autonomy to choose how they want to accomplish the task.
- Don’t tread on other’s work, thoughts, and opinions by helping and
offering advice when your help or advice wasn't asked for and
wasn't wanted or needed.
- Be sure that you are not the ONLY one supervising the kids but other
adults have responsibility in supervising them also.
- Be sure that you are not ONLY the supervising but that you are also
working HANDS-ON with the others.
- When tasks are accomplished, check them off of the list, give kudos, show
others the accomplishments that were made so that everyone
knows the success that they all are causing in dealing with the
goals that you have made together.
Remember, this is not just for families but businesses also. In business be sure to take care of your responsibilities first, then if you can, lift up a co-worker by offering your assistance. If you are working on a project together, be sure to follow the list above as it works just as well with some alterations.
Join me again next time as we continue to add more informative self-help articles for everyday living.