2026 October 13 Being resilient and kind to yourself

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me to talk about remembering to care for yourself. So, let's get started.

This week, we're going to be looking inward a little bit, and we'll be talking about remembering how to care for yourself. I know we often talk about looking outward, and while that's often appropriate, we can't neglect ourselves either. Much like the oxygen mask warning on airplanes, remember to make sure that you're okay before trying to help other people. There are some very good reasons for that, and it's pretty similar to why you should put your oxygen mask on first. If you're unable to function because you're out of oxygen, then you won't be of much use to the other people around you. Well, self-care is part of the oxygen our mind and body require to function properly. So if you completely ignore your own needs, pretty quickly you won't be able to help anyone else either.

So how do you draw that line between selfish behavior and self-care? I think it usually isn't too hard if you're actually paying attention to what you're doing and the reasoning behind the decision. Should you spend $3 to get yourself an ice cream cone instead of putting that into a donation basket? It depends upon how much it will energize you, not just physically, but also mentally. If you're physically and mentally exhausted and just don't know how you'll face the next task, perhaps that little treat will get you over that hurdle and being productive again. However, getting yourself five ice cream cones every day? Well, unless you're working in the desert, chances are you're kind of overdoing it. And yes, I know some things are more difficult than our simple little example, but I'm sure you get the idea. Just like anytime you're shopping, if you spend too much time trying to convince yourself why something is a good buy, you're probably rationalizing your actions.

As you know, I spend a fair amount of time on LinkedIn, and one of the people that I follow, and actually I'm connected to, is Susan S. Chen. She had a real nice little drawing reminder on this topic today, and you should check her out. That's LinkedIn.com/in/susan-s-chen. She has a lot of good posts that help keep the world in perspective. Her post said: make sure to include yourself in the list of things you need to take care of this week. I know a lot of us get wrapped up in all the things we have to do, chores, things with the family, things with whatever activities you're in, and all that stuff. It's easy to forget to put yourself on that list, and when you do that, you just kind of run out of energy. All the things that you wanted to do, you can't really do well, because you're plum out of energy. So when you do your to-do list, remember to leave a little time in there. It doesn't have to be something spectacular, but just something that's a little bit for yourself, so that you give yourself a break as you go through life, and you can do something that helps you get through it.

The next one is another person I talk about a lot, Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary V. If you've ever followed him at all, you know he's pretty blunt in what he says. I'll paraphrase this a little bit, because he was talking about the advantages of staying busy, which is a good rationale for why you would make changes in your life, but to me, a lot of what he was saying applies to much more than just staying busy. So, like I said, I'm going to paraphrase a little bit. What he was saying is: don't consume all the fear that others are selling. Just because somebody says it's the end of the world doesn't mean you have to read it, believe it, put it into your life, and let it suck the energy out of you. Don't compare yourself to others. That's the number one way to make yourself miserable. You look at somebody else's life, and especially on social media, you see some snapshot into their lives that of course always looks perfect. They control the whole thing, and you look at that and you go, why can't it be like that? How come I'm not on the beach playing volleyball with a bunch of other people? It's because they aren't either. So don't compare yourself to others. And don't be jealous or envious of other people. Jealousy and envy do nothing except make you horrifically dissatisfied with your own life. So just three simple reminders, and now we have four things in total: remember to care for yourself, don't consume all the fear from others, don't compare yourself with others, and don't be jealous or envious.

And then the third one is another person I have spoken of before, Dr. Shadé Zahrai, and she's also on LinkedIn, at LinkedIn.com/in/shadezahrai. She really does a lot of work with corporations and talks about business situations, but this particular video really applies to your personal life, and to life in general as well. Her topic was especially interesting because, like I said, she does a lot of work around business. You applied for a position. You thought you had it nailed. You thought you did a great presentation, and you get rejected. She reminds you not to get too focused on what might have gone wrong, in this case if you had a rejection, such as for a job interview. But the techniques apply equally to all sorts of everyday reactions and situations that end up feeling like rejections, that just happen in our personal lives. Whether it's a conversation that became heated, perhaps, or a personal relationship, or even with yourself, if you don't reach some goal that you desired.

The operative phrase that she talks about is that you have to remember what went right, and not just what went wrong. That will help you and your brain build trust in your own abilities, and that will help you going forward. It's a really important point. It's a personal thing, the way our brain works. We always want to be accepted socially, and when it doesn't happen, it's a huge red flag for our brain. So what tends to happen in those cases is it goes, oh, it was all my fault. I should have gotten that job. I should have done this, I should have done that. That's just your brain trying not to get put out of society. That's not how it happens. As she says in her little video, who knows? Maybe the person that said they didn't want the job internally came back and said, you know, actually, I think that'd be a great job for me. And they go, oh, great, we really wanted Mary in that job, and so they don't offer it to you, because the person they wanted as their first choice changed their mind and decided to take it. There are a lot of things that could have happened, but we tend to focus on ourselves.

So again, three simple, important ways to care for yourself and manage your own situations and personal life. The first is to remember that in all cases, you count too. It's not just because you're being self-important, but rather, if you can't show up for and support yourself, you won't be able to support others. Then remember that just because someone says or does something that you don't like, you're under no obligation to consume it and let it impact you. And Lord knows there's a lot going on with the elections right now. People are saying all sorts of things about everybody else. You don't have to sit and watch that whole ad. You can just move on to something else. And similarly, jealousy and envy: nothing but destructive. Just remove them from your life in every way. Finally, even when, and especially when, things don't go as you'd hoped, skip the immediate blame game and look for evidence of things that did go well, even if the outcome wasn't what you wanted. And like I said, always remember that you count. It's very, very important. You're not trying to be self-important, but self-care is tremendously important. So those things can become kind of the basis and training for developing a more resilient attitude and building an internal trust in yourself that will help you be more confident in your abilities in the future.

These are some simple reminders of things that often get overlooked. In the hustle and bustle of life, and particularly as we age, there's a lot of ageism around, telling you how useless you are, how invisible you are, how you can't do things anymore. So we have this constant noise in the background. That's one of the things to just turn off, and we've had multiple episodes on this. If somebody says something that's obviously ageist, just say, "Pardon me, did you just say what I think I heard you say?" Call them out on it. A lot of times it's common knowledge, and they just say these things. "Oh, I'm having a senior moment." But they forget that 30 seconds earlier, they had what they're calling a senior moment too, except they're 28 and they couldn't remember which customer they were waiting on. So don't let all those negative things creep into your mind. You have the ability to filter what you pay attention to in life and how you interpret what goes on in life. These things are simple, and they often get overlooked, but they can have a profound impact upon you and how you view yourself and how you respond to life's challenges.

So, that's it for the evening, and of course, it wouldn't be complete unless we said: don't forget about the five pillars. That's our strategy, our kind of model for one way to look at life, the five basic pillars of personality and curiosity and the health of your mind, the health of your body, and how you view yourself, your identity. It helps explain a lot of things, and as we age, a lot of times we probably want to rebalance those a little bit. So we have a little free course. If you go to 7EveryMinute.com/five-pillars-freebie, you can watch a little course and get a little more insight into some of the things that, I wouldn't say are controlling your life, but are kind of pushing you one way or the other, directing, giving suggestions on what you believe about things. I think it's worth taking a look at. And we have courses coming that go more in depth than that as well, but this is kind of an introduction to what we're doing in that whole realm. We use it throughout our life, but again, as we age, we often feel less confident in something and we tend to blame ourselves for things that are just natural parts of life.

As always, remember one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others, but not to excess. See UKR7.com and WCK.org. Those are two international sites. UKR7.com helps the people in Ukraine. WCK.org is World Central Kitchen. You'll often see them on the ground in disaster areas throughout the world. But local charities are always looking for help as well. If you can chip in, either with time or money or whatever, it's always appreciated. And even if you don't have the ability to do any of those things right now, just a simple smile can change someone else's day for the better in ways you can't imagine.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting and useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe and hit that like button. Thank you so much. Have a great week.

Remember to live the life that you dreamed of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.