Focus on you first: 3 things more important than ‘having it all together’
It’s easy to feel as if you’re always behind in this microwave society of ours.
Everything is fast these days: information, the news cycle, culture. It almost feels like everything flips in twenty-hour intervals.
To make matters more complex, coupled with constantly feeling like there’s always something to be done, social media has conditioned us to see our lives through the lens of how it stacks up against others.
Joe Blow from high school got a blue check on Twitter last week or Susy Somebody landed a huge investor for her startup, LinkedIn said the other day.
The projections of our peers having it together and the hovering anxiety of feeling like we’re supposed to be further than we are can pressure us into making poor decisions and even breed bitterness.
If you notice, it’s when we’re focused on our journey and our journey alone our dreams feels a lot more realistic. It’s not until outside opinions and comparisons are factored in that doubt creep in.
Believe it or not, there are things that are more important than ‘having it all together’.
While the rules of the rat race state you should never sleep, work multiple jobs and grind non-stop, there are other factors to consider, that when tended, can ultimately get us closer to getting it together in the first place.
Self-care, integrity, and progress, for example, are all pillars to establishing a balanced life, yet it’s not nearly as regarded as the amount of money in your bank account or the university you went to.
What’s the purpose of having it all together if you’re not together yourself?
Self-Care
Before starting your nonprofit, before your next media agency, before becoming the next big… whatever, your focus should be on how you, yourself, are doing.
56% of American adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment. We just don’t take time to care. If it’s not the day job keeping the lights on, it’s the side job keeping the passion alive. Either way, it’s you not getting what’s needed at the end of the day.
Self-care is far more important than achieving your largest and loftiest dreams. We must maintain healthy habits in so to have endurance through life’s unfairest times.
Tracking your well-being doesn’t have to be overly complicated either. Simple indications, like your happiness, should be enough of a gauge to let you know when it’s time to make a change or do something different.
Integrity
Integrity is another trait that should take priority over all else, especially over ‘having it all together’. Status has become such a coveted asset to life, that some go to shameful extremes to acquire and preserve it. But how far you are in life and what you do is all for naught if the path wasn’t honest.
Cutting corners and sacrificing non-negotiables will only go so far. That’s like putting the mess under the bed instead of thoroughly cleaning the room. If we cannot find ways to excel in an honest way, then we should go back to the drawing board.
Additionally, we shouldn’t compromise what we truly want or who we genuinely are for a dollar amount or promotion. We owe ourselves artistic integrity in that right as well. A lot of times that gets lost in the name of being someone who has it all together.
Progression
Progress is something else that supersedes the image of being well put together or being someone who has it all figured out.
Maybe it takes having not gone anywhere or plummeting, even, for us to appreciate growth because our culture often overlooks small victories.
Making positive steps toward a vision or a goal each day, no matter how small they may be, is significant, and we shouldn’t let the culture of what we don’t have discourage us from feeling that way.
If you’re executing your responsibilities and you’re making efforts to go further, then you ‘have it all together’, regardless of what the next person has.
It’s when we master the small things that are our larger ambitions unfold.