Sometimes milestones launch you into a new season of life, one that requires a different kind of self-care. Let's talk about it.
Welcome to Inner Warmup, where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest. Thanks for being here. I thought we'd kick things off with a check in question. Tell me what was the best thing about your weekend?
I appreciate you sharing. The best part of my weekend was really the spaciousness. I took a mental health day on Friday, and just really laid low for the weekend. I needed that, I needed just time to do nothing and to take naps and to rest. And really make sure that I was integrating all of the good stuff that we talk about here, on Inner Warmup - the podcast, and as a company in Inner Workout. We've been talking a lot lately about shifts, and changes and how those impact us. If you haven't seen that, we can put it in the show notes. But we just launched a blog post at Inner Workout where we were talking about the different types of seasons. And one of the types of seasons that we talked about were milestone seasons.
I see milestones as, like these lines in the sand, where we look at - I was this version of me before this event happened. And then after that happened, I was a different version of myself, I moved into my next iteration. Sometimes milestones are super positive things, but they can also be difficult things that we have to work through too.
So it could be a milestone is that you get a big promotion. A milestone could also be you got fired from your job. You enter into a partnership, or you and your partner breakup. Could be that you start a new grad school program, you move across the country. I don't know you decide to quit something, you quit social media. I have a friend who recently has gotten off of Instagram and already was off Facebook before that, those are milestone moments, those line in the sand moments. And they certainly change what self care looks like for you. Going back to the example of people who are getting off of Instagram, if you had to have support systems around engaging on Instagram because you found that you were feeling really bad about yourself after you were scrolling for a long time. All of a sudden, you might not need those same support systems. And you might be aware of new types of support that you have to start to build out. So milestone moments, they change you, they launch you into a new season. And that's what I want to talk about with you today. That's what I want to interview you around.
So the question that I'm posing is, what's a milestone that's changed self care for you?
I can start. For me, it's entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship has been something that I've wanted since I was a kid. It's the direction that I knew I was headed, and also actually entering into entrepreneurship was a lot. I had to and continue to have to rethink self care and what it means to me. I quit my full time job in 2018. And I kind of eased my way into entrepreneurship. So in 2018, I was working part time, and then was spending the rest of the time on my own projects. And eventually, fast forward to August 2020. I quit my part time work and had this milestone of... Okay, I work for myself now. I'm also bootstrapping Inner Workout. I have consulting clients that I work with, and I use that money to help fund and continue to grow the business. So it can be a lot. I'm working for myself. I want to make sure that my needs and my family's needs are taken care of. Now I have a small team - I want to make sure that they're supported. And I also run a self care company. And it's this really interesting dichotomy of wanting to build and grow this thing that I believe in so deeply. At Inner Workout, we're working towards a world without burnout, not that we can do that alone, but like, that's our North Star. And that's really cool. But I don't want to burn myself out in the process. Now I don't have a boss to say, "hey, you're doing a great job, you can take a day off", or, "hey, you haven't booked a vacation this year, make sure you use your PTO time". That's got to be me. And I have to make sure that I have people in my life, who are reminding me of that when I'm not.
Also, self care is now my job. I talk about self care and personal development for a living. And so I'm having to add this extra layer of questioning to make sure, "okay, this act of self care, am I doing it because I feel like I should, because I've talked about it recently?" And I want to show people that I'm practicing what I preach. Or am I doing this because this would actually be the most loving, the most nourishing thing that I can do for myself right now. And so sometimes I have that conversation with myself. And it's just a reminder, Hey, you know what, Taylor, you don't have to post that bath on Instagram stories. Or you had a really amazing journaling session. And that insight that you had can be just for you.
My self care has definitely change with entrepreneurship, especially this type of entrepreneurship that I'm doing, because not only is it I feel, a lot of responsibility with what I'm doing, which all entrepreneurs can relate to. But also, I'm trying to connect people and bring them back to themselves and give them tools to help them take care of themselves. So I feel this extra responsibility to make sure that I'm in alignment with what I'm sharing. Not that I do it perfectly, because I definitely don't. But yeah, that's my milestone, is like I have had to completely change the way that I approach self care, as I've journeyed deeper and deeper into entrepreneurship.
But enough about me, it's your turn. What's a milestone that changed self care for you?
Thank you for sharing those reflections with me. It means a lot. And before we head out, before we round out this episode in this interview, a couple of quick notes.
So Inner Warmup is relatively new, we're still figuring things out. You're always welcome to email, takecare@innerworkout.co if you have any thoughts on how we can make this this better for you. I also want to note that we have a free workshop that's coming up on May 1, all about the three P's of building your self care support system. The way that you get your invite is to rate and review Inner Warmup wherever you listen. And then to screenshot, just because there's no other way for us to verify who it is. So screenshot it and then send it to takecare@innerworkout.co and we'll send you your meeting invite. Finally, if you want to continue the conversation, see what came up for other people in their reflections, head over to our free community. You can click here to access! Thanks for joining me today and thank you for your expertise.
Take care!