Leadership quality number 1: Self-care
Get to know three useful self-care tools – beyond meditation, yoga and incense sticks.
Successful people know:
Self-care is not an option, but the foundation of their creative power and success. Self-care is a particularly important topic for women in management positions: they want to actively shape their lives and are no longer satisfied with an “either-or” approach. They want a “as well as” – family AND career, without neglecting themselves.
This requires strategies, methods, techniques and the willingness to deal with yourself, your own thoughts, emotions, actions and results.
You will find these strategies and methods within yourself. In the way you deal with yourself, how you think about yourself, how you talk to yourself, how you assess and judge yourself. All of this has a major influence on the course of your life and your career. YOU have this influence yourself.
The magic word is self-care.
My self-care concept always spans the arc from self-leadership to leadership to leadership as a role model. Self-care begins with reflecting on how we deal with certain situations and events.
Perceiving, recognising, adjusting, aligning.
And of course, meditation, writing, visualisation, mindset and bodywork are essential components of a routine self-care practice. I will be happy to write about this in a later post. Today it’s about the basics that can also have a big impact in your life. I’m going to introduce you to three useful self-care tools of a “different kind”. These tools can help you to prioritise and immediately implement your self-care without any additional stress.
Tool 1: Reflective mindmapping
Preparing for your personalised self-care practice is crucial for long-term success and sustainable well-being. The time you invest in these preliminary considerations is time well spent, because you will get a lot of time back.
Reflective Mindmapping is a great way to visually organise your thoughts, issues, opportunities and challenges.
This tool helps you to gain clarity about your self-care needs and plan concrete actions. The visual representation makes it easier for you to recognise connections and priorities.
Reflective Mindmapping promotes a deep understanding of your own needs and priorities. It enables you to plan concrete steps for your self-care and to focus on the most important aspects.
The result:
A clearly structured self-care practice that supports you sustainably.
Implementation:
- Take 15-20 minutes and find a quiet place.
- Use a large sheet of paper and coloured pens.¹
- Write “My self-care practice” in the centre of the paper.
- Create branches for different categories such as “Current situation”, “Goals”, “Challenges”, “Opportunities” and “First steps”.
- Fill the branches with your thoughts and ideas.
All you need is paper and pens and 15-20 minutes of undisturbed time. Start simply, without any demands for perfection – the tool thrives on your creativity and spontaneity.
Your “self-care mind map” is your reliable companion when it comes to dealing clearly with certain topics and situations. You can also use Reflective Mindmapping for your weekly planning or other projects.
Tool 2: The change of perspective
How about approaching every tricky topic or new challenge with a beginner’s mindset – curious and open, as if it were your first time?
A fresh look at things can work wonders, especially in stressful times.
The “Change of perspective” tool helps you to break out of limiting thought patterns. By consciously changing your perspective, you can look at challenges from a new angle and discover creative solutions and completely new possibilities. This tool therefore boosts your creativity and problem-solving skills.
The result:
Better decision-making and a more flexible approach to complex situations.
Implementation:
- Find a quiet place and take 10-15 minutes.
- Choose a current challenge or decision that is bothering you.
- Write down the situation from at least three different perspectives (e.g. personal perspective such as boss, colleague, partner and situational perspective such as salary negotiation, conflict discussion and time perspective such as deadline, working hours).
- Think about what new insights you can gain from the different perspectives.
- Use these new insights to make an informed decision or develop a creative solution from this new perspective.
All you need is a notebook, a pen and 10-15 minutes of undisturbed time. Let your thoughts flow freely and be open to new perspectives.
Tool 3: Time management mastery
Time is one of the most valuable resources and at the same time one of the biggest obstacles to success. Because time flies and very few people are mindful and sensible with their time.
Time is a major issue for managers in particular, as they are under enormous pressure from others and rarely have time for themselves.
People who actively organise their professional and private lives in a versatile way and are not satisfied with an “either-or” approach want to optimise their time so that they don’t work more, but smarter, more focused and with fewer hours.
In order to act, live and make decisions in a stress-free, focussed and forward-looking way, you cannot avoid planning your time mindfully, effectively and sensibly.
Can you dock there?
Then the “Time Management Mastery” tool is just right for you. It offers you tried-and-tested techniques to make the best use of your time for the things that matter, creating space for self-care.
The result:
A balanced and fulfilling life in which both professional and personal goals are achieved.
Implementation:
- Take 20-30 minutes and find a quiet place.
- Define your most important goals for the week and the month.
- Use the Eisenhower matrix, for example, to sort your tasks according to urgency and importance.
- Plan your tasks in fixed time blocks and reserve these blocks in your calendar.
- Take regular breaks, even if it doesn’t feel good at first. Here I recommend the Pomodoro technique.
- Check your progress at the end of the week and adjust your planning if necessary.
A calendar or planning app, 20-30 minutes of your time and a willingness to approach your tasks in a structured way are all you need. Start with small steps and adapt the techniques to your needs.
The right time to start self-care is now
If you adopt one of these three tools, you have already gained a lot. There’s no need to wait for the right time. Now is the right moment. Self-care is always and it’s not a luxury – it’s the non-negotiable foundation for success and a balanced life.
Take back control of your time and create a healthy balance between work and self-care. The best way to do this is with reflective mindmapping, change of perspective or time management mastery.
Notes:
This article is the second in a multi-part series by Janine Tychsen on the topic of “Self-care for women in management positions”. After the basics in the first article “Fits in every diary: self-care” and the tools in this article, the next article is about the world of lived self-care energy.
The self-care tools presented here are easy to use and bring lasting results. They are an extract from the online course “Self-Care-4-Success” by Janine Tychsen with a total of 13+ practices, monthly live coaching sessions and group exchanges.
If you like the article or would like to discuss it, please feel free to share it with your network.
Janine Tychsen has published more posts on the t2informatik Blog:
Fits into every diary: self-care
Inner Work – The confrontation with oneself
From executive to leadership personality
Janine Tychsen
Janine Tychsen has been training and coaching women in leadership positions in administration, business and science organisations for many years.
Her mission: to inspire women for leadership and encourage them to lead self-determined, creatively and with inner strength.
Her motto: Women, take the lead! From leadership to leadership personality to leading as a role model.
Ms Tychsen works with women on their leadership and communication skills, their attitude to leadership, their inner attitude and on the demands and challenges placed on women in leadership (such as dealing with employees, conflict and crisis management, organising work and time, difficult conversations and decisions, dealing with refusals to work, etc.).