You Are The Most Important Thing

Eric Thorsen
Sep 10, 2024
2 min read

I'm up in Boston, visiting some colleges with my son.

Today I wanted to talk about that inner critic.

All of us have an inner voice, and sometimes that inner voice is pretty critical.

I was working with somebody the other day, and they were describing to me their very nasty inner critic.

They were beating themselves up about a project that they're working on and just thinking that it should be faster. Other people can do this faster. Why can't I?

As I’ve talked about before, the unhealthy comparison of others can be the thief of joy. Catch yourself when you start doing that…and stop.

So I started asking questions:

What are you doing to take care of yourself?

What are you doing to make sure you're staying present?

The response:

“It's an important project. So I'm skipping my workouts. I'm skipping my meals. I forgot to eat today. I’m working late.”

This pattern of putting things in front of self care can fuel feelings of low self esteem.

I remember well something a coach of mine told me years ago:

The only collateral I have to offer anybody is myself.

It's the old oxygen mask metaphor.

My guidance for him was to do esteemable things.

What's an esteemable thing?

Take care of yourself.

🔅 You can't do your full workout? Go for a walk.

🔅 You can't go out to eat for lunch like you normally do? Then bring some food, eat at the desk.

Building up your esteem is about doing esteemable things.

It's highly probable there are some unreasonable expectations, but never forget self care.

This is something I learned the hard way.

I don't do that anymore (I used to).

I know that whatever it is that I have in front of me that's the biggest, most important thing, nothing's more important than me taking care of myself to be there for my family to be there for my work to be there for the things I really care about.

Because once I finish that most important thing, there will be another to take its place.