[00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna and today I'm going to talk about five essential self care habits for business owners to end the year Now, this is actually a really good time, particularly for business owners and maybe just for, you know, driven women in careers that things start to slow down a bit here and therefore you can actually take some time for yourself and catch up on things that you haven't done.
[00:00:24] And I really recommend to take this time for yourself if you can, if your business or your work is. So if you're having any of these slowing down now, then really use this to your advantage to not only end the year strong, but set yourself up for a different year than this year. Okay, I cannot believe it's the end of the year already, but here we are.
[00:00:42] So the first thing that I recommend is to do some regular lab or pathology testing. So these are some of the things that we put off. They actually found that people get their blood tests done once every five years, which is crazy long time. And like I was saying to someone in one of my calls groups the other day, that if you don't check, like we're talking about thyroid markers, if you don't check them now, all of them, and say, you know, in five years time, something shows up and you think, Oh man, I wish I did that like five years ago.
[00:01:14] I really could have made some significant, difference and not let it go this far. Right? So five years is a long time. So if you haven't had a recent blood test in the last six to 12 months, now is the time to go and do that. Get a checkup, get a full blood count, cholesterol. I did another podcast on what kind of pathology testing you can do, particularly.
[00:01:33] If you're busy, you operate under a lot of pressure, you work long hours, you run your own business, you know, there's a lot of stress, then I really talked about, you know, what blood tests to get in order to have a look at peak performance markers. You know, are you heading into burnout? And what's the gap to feeling, you know, your absolute best?
[00:01:53] Okay, so that's number one, get the regular health testing and it could be other tests that you've delayed, but now would be the time to go and do that. So really kind of tying up those loose ends. Number two is prioritizing sleep. So if you're had a very busy year and you're kind of feeling that end of year feel where you're like, wow, I really need a break, then You know, I'd really focus on prioritizing sleep we spend a third of our time sleeping, right? So you've got to wonder how important this is for our body and it is very important. And so there's a lot of repair work. There's a lot of catch up work that happens while we're sleeping. And if you're like not sticking to a routine now because it's the end of the year, you know, you've found that this year you haven't had much sleep, or you've had late nights, or you've had interrupted sleep.
[00:02:37] Really work on prioritising sleep now. Making sure that you get to bed by 10pm, that's a really key time, because we want to get some deep sleep before midnight, so our body can go through all the repair work. Go to bed at 10 p. m. and sleep for eight hours. Okay. So, you know, I call it the power of eight before ten And making sure that you know, you're having a really good sleep And if you're waking up during the night, then you really need to look at ways What's causing that and there's really only a couple of things that cause that it's either elevated stress hormone levels or or it is a drop in your blood glucose levels.
[00:03:09] If you're drinking at this time, you will find that you will have interrupted sleep because the glucose levels drop overnight, around 3, 4 a. m. due to alcohol being in the system and the body doesn't regulate its glucose levels so well. So, prioritize sleep, get to bed by 10, sleep for eight hours, and really use that as your catch up time, recharging the battery before we roll over to the next year.
[00:03:32] Number three is a bit of an unusual one, but I love it. And I recommend it to all of my private clients and it's really taking one whole day. I call it a creativity day and it's blocking out one full day out of your calendar where you can't be interrupted by text messages, emails, your team can't reach you.
[00:03:52] The only thing that you can be reached for It's an absolute emergency, right? Like a medical emergency or something like that, right? Otherwise, you're completely unreachable and you have to tell people that, you know, you're taking this day and you can't be, contacted. And the reason for this day and the reason why I call it a creativity day is you don't have any devices, you don't have a computer, you don't have a laptop, you don't have anything with you, which might sound frightening for some, but The idea is to have a pen and paper, like, a notebook, right?
[00:04:18] And you spend, like, you block out six to eight hours. Now that's going to sound like a long day, right? And it is. You will find the first hour your mind is like racing, like, what am I going to do for the whole day? scribbling down all these things that you wanted to do on your to do list or whatever.
[00:04:34] But the purpose of this day is to allow your mind to uncoil. It is to allow all the stuff that's been swirling around in your head for so long and how busy your brain has been with everything, with running a business or family etc. Give it that space to uncoil and slow down and the purpose of this is to come up with new ideas for your business, for your life for your goals, whatever it is, for the next year or for the next quarter.
[00:05:02] Okay. And so you'll find that after that first hour or two, you actually have some really amazing insights about what you need and what direction you need to go in your business or in your personal life, what you need maybe for your personal wellbeing. But for me, I've used this for business and I've really found it's such an insightful way to tap into what you actually need, but we don't hear that normally because we're so busy with the everyday tasks.
[00:05:27] We're so busy doing that. We don't allow that space to allow our mind to just kind of Stretch out. Okay. So it's a really powerful exercise. You will find that by the end of the day, you'll have so many ideas of things that you want to implement that will move your business along further, grow your business, or like I said, something with your personal life or your personal wellbeing.
[00:05:50] So that's something that I recommend to my private clients because I know the power in it. Okay. Because we don't understand how much power we carry in our mind in order to create our future. And when the mind slows down, we are able to access all of that potential. Number four, if you want to improve your personal wellbeing or your mental wellbeing, your physical wellbeing and this year you have not been consistent with it, then now is the time to look for a coach.
[00:06:17] a PT, someone to assist you in this process. Okay. So if you've got the time, you want to start searching for people. Maybe you follow people. Maybe now's the time to buy their program. Maybe now is the time to sign up to work with them. Right? So I have women sign up with me in December. we get crazy around Christmas time and new years, because this is the, people have a bit more space to, to know what they want to do for themselves, right?
[00:06:41] take this opportunity to. You know, sign up with someone or work with someone to commit to your goals for the next 12 months. So don't look at it at three months or one month. Look at it for the next year for 2025. What do I want to commit to in my physical wellbeing, personal wellbeing, mental wellbeing, whatever it is, and who is the coach PT or someone who can support me through that process?
[00:07:04] Meaning, do you work with someone more closely and they keep you accountable? do you follow a process step by step that is easy for you to execute? You don't have to look Anywhere else for any other ideas or tips or tricks or whatever you need to do, but you're, you're really focused on one program and you execute it.
[00:07:19] Over that time. Okay. So this is really the time to enroll someone to be on your team, to support you, to reach the goals that you want for 2025
[00:07:28] and number five, socialise, spend time with friends and family. Get out there. Right? Because if you're in business, it can be quite isolating because you tend to do a lot of work from home. On your computer, maybe on your own, and you do speak with your team, but maybe there's a lot of time that you spend on your own.
[00:07:45] And it can feel quite isolating. Maybe if you're, you know, in your career, you find that you're juggling career and family, and that you don't have a lot of time or energy to socialise, do that now, okay? Because socialising is just another form of medicine for us. Our connections that we make are another form of medicine for our energy, for our mood.
[00:08:04] for our overall well being. Okay. So book things in, network, catch up with your friends, catch up with family, do what you can to get out there and be much more social and just notice the difference. Like you will feel so much more energetic. Whereas perhaps maybe in the year Those interactions make you feel tired and drained, because you have so much to do, it feels like you don't have time for that.
[00:08:28] But now is the time to go fill up on that socialising.
[00:08:31] So, those are my top 5 self care habits, really easy ones. One, obviously takes more time, it's a commitment of the day, but really, really worth it. If you've never done anything like that, the creativity day that I mentioned, I would definitely suggest that you do that. Just out of even curiosity to see what ideas come through you through that process.
[00:08:51] Let me know in the comments below which one you'll get started with right away.