PP 169: Listening to What Our Bodies are Telling Us

In Episode 167, I discussed how it’s time to squash our stubbornness I shared about how stubborn I’ve been in the past, including such little things as changing the batteries in my keyboard and my mouse if it wasn’t functioning properly, and how I often resisted changing the batteries because I was convinced that I could continue using them and it was just a temporary glitch.

In today’s episode, I wanted to discuss a whole nother level of stubbornness.

I want to discuss how we need to stop ignoring the signals that our bodies are sending us.

Listening to What Our Bodies are Telling Us

As funny as it may sound, while I was taking care of posting Episode 167, I was sitting here at my desk, ridiculously hungry, and sorry for the TMI, but I’ve had to go pee ridiculously bad. However, I sat here, ignoring my hunger, ignoring the fact that nature was calling and I was trying to push through.

I don’t know what you are like when you are hungry, but when I’m hungry, I start to get cranky and my focus gets turned off completely. What should have been a 5 to 10 minute job of simply getting that episode up and out, ended up turning into a half hour because I was so distracted by my hunger, and also because I had to go pee.

When I realized that I was being stubborn and not giving into what my body was asking for, I started laughing at myself and immediately got up, went out to the kitchen and used the restroom.

But that got me thinking.

I know that there are so many times in our life where we ignore what our body is telling us to do. It can be telling us to eat, it can be telling us to use the restroom, or it might even be telling us to sleep. I know I’ve personally ignored exhaustion because I just wanted to get something done. But that thing that I want to get done ended up taking four times longer because of how exhausted I was.

There have been so many nights where I have found myself drifting off to sleep in front of my computer, or I have physically felt my eyes crossing while just trying to get that last thing done.

If you know what I’m talking about, I’d love to hear your comments and you can leave them at thekimsutton.com/pp169. It’s time that we stop ignoring our bodies and what our bodies are telling us that they not only want, but what they need.

We should never be pushing ourselves to the point of our eyes crossing. And I know we all get there so often, even in the middle of the day, or in the middle of the afternoon after perhaps a bigger lunch than we would have normally eaten. I found myself sitting at my desk (?). I found myself drifting, drifting, drifting and I realized I need to take a nap.

A nap is not going to hurt us, especially when we’re self employed. If your schedule is so packed that you cannot afford to give yourself a half hour nap, then that is something that you really need to look into. You either need to look into building your team or giving yourself a little bit of freedom during the day.

I know I didn’t build my business with the intention of driving myself so hard that I never got a chance to relax. I know that I sure as heck didn’t start my business to not ever eat between breakfast and dinner. But let me tell you: There are so many mornings that I skipped breakfast and I will easily find myself at three o’clock in the afternoon having not eaten anything yet in the day.

Don’t do this yourself.

You body needs sleep. Your body needs food. And yes, your body does need a restroom break in order to perform as it really should be and needs to be.

So stop being stubborn with your body. Give your body a break and start listening to what it’s telling you. Now, with that said, go forth and have a positive and productive day.