Be Your Own Best Friend

In my opinion, the saddest thing about DaVincis — smart creative people juggling many ideas, projects and talents — is that we can be very hard on ourselves.  We tend to scold ourselves for what’s not getting done and gloss over our victories.  Thankfully, we’re also pretty interesting people so we tend to have collected some pretty wonderful friends.  Our true friends support us, encourage us, help us problem solve and reassure us that we’re okay, our ideas are sound, our projects are worthwhile and our talents are considerable.  They help us through difficult times and help us celebrate our accomplishments.

We can learn a lot from our friends.

Stop for a moment and think about your best friend.  What are they like?   How do they treat you, on a daily basis?  How have they helped you during difficult times?  What things have they done or said that demonstrates their friendship and affection for you?  How have they supported or appreciated your talents?

Now, think about yourself.  How do you tend to talk to yourself?  Are you your own best cheerleader or do you tend to beat yourself up?

Activity:  Take a moment to write down the messages you’d rather have in your head.  If you were your own best friend, what would you tell yourself?  Keep this list somewhere where you will see it regularly.

Activity:  Clear some  uninterrupted time.  Write yourself a letter of encouragement as if you were your best friend.

To what extent do you take good care of yourself? If you were your best friend, what would you encourage yourself to do more of?  Less of?

Activity:  List at least ten things you’ve accomplished.

Do you celebrate your accomplishments or do you gloss over them and run straight to the next thing on your list?

Activity:  Pick something you can aim to celebrate in the near future.  What upcoming project milestone or completion could you acknowledge?  Make a point of doing so.

How do you feel about your talents?  To what extent do you demonstrate your appreciation for them?  What more could you do to honor your talents?

Activity:  In the next month, seek ways to acknowledge your talents.

Activity:  This week, practice being your own best friend.

***

Check out my book  YOU CAN GET IT DONE:  Choose What to do, Plan, Start, Stay on Track, Overcome Obstacles, and Finish.  Available here: http://bit.ly/YouCanGetItDone

***

Want to re-publish this article? Go for it – just include the author’s name, a link to this original post and the following text blurb:

Are you struggling with too many talents, skills, ideas? You may have The DaVinci Dilemma™! Find tools, fun quizzes, coaching, inspiration and solutions for multi-talented people at http://www.davincidilemma.com/ .