My butterfly bush, with company

I wrote this blog about eleven years ago when I was writing full time for clients who needed marketing and blog help. I made a bit selling real estate, an even bigger bit as a contract paralegal for lawyers.

Then about six years ago, my real estate career took off. I left the professional social media management behind and started making a rather large bit selling homes.

Except that I forgot something really important along the way.  In my flurry to be sure I was taking care of everyone else, I kept forgetting to pay myself first.  I had to recently go back to an old blog by Chris Brogan (www.chrisbrogan.com) with, I have to admit, the same title that I’ve used here.  It reminded me that I have forgotten to take care of the most important aspect of my business – Me.

Chris isn’t talking about money – he’s talking about paying yourself in time and effort before you give those commodities away to someone else.  And he’s clear that this method is the only sure way to success.

Here’s how Chris says it:

Areas Where You Should Pay Yourself First

If you want to improve your lot in life, if you want to balance your priorities, here’s my quick little recipe for paying yourself first:

  • Get as close to 8 hours of sleep a night as you can.
  • Schedule “do not disturb” time with your family as often as possible.
  • Weigh every business opportunity against your change in quality of life.
  • Ask for what you’re worth, so you can work the right number of hours for respectable pay.
  • Work your core projects first over all external projects.
  • Weigh the negatives and positives of any trip you might be asked to take. Decide accordingly.
  • Realize that physical fitness boosts mental fitness and make it a priority, not a nice-to-have.
  • Listen for warning signs (your body tells you when you’re messing with its parameters).
  • Cut out junk: food, hours, consumption, entertainment. Your mind and body deserve the best.
  • Audit how you’re spending your time and validate whether it’s working for you.
  • Get out into nature once every two days at most. Nature is that other window with the higher resolution.

Chris spoke directly to me.  And one of the ways I haven’t been paying myself first is by writing this blog.  I love this blog, and my subscribers, and gleaning ideas from the smallest detail in my New Mexico life.  I relish the search for great images and stories, and mostly, I obviously like to hear myself talk. 

The other ways I pay myself first have to be by going out into my garden for a break from this laptop (you should see my arugula bed!), by taking a  break some afternoons to have coffee around my mother’s kitchen table with her and my Dad.  I’ll turn off my computer in the evenings and spend them cooking something fabulous.  I’ll sit on the deck and watch the butterflies in my butterfly bush.  And then, of course, I’ll go back to work and write those “professional” blogs with some of the cobwebs cleared out of my head.  As Chris suggests, paying yourself first can only make you better at your job.   

There’s a couple of earlier blog posts – “Relax and Enjoy it” and one about celebrating everything in your life – where I talk about how New Mexicans are especially good at working really hard and then playing really hard.  Sometimes we just have to be reminded.  Or at least I do.

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