‘Pay yourself first’ is a well-known business principle. For many entrepreneurs however this is a foreign concept, because the business always comes first, the creditors second, and the business owner last (if at all!).
‘Pay yourself first’ does not refer to today’s salary; rather it considers how you save money, and how you plan long-term, so that your time spent in the working world pays you.
In this way ‘pay yourself first’ means invest and save today so that you are able to live a certain calibre of life tomorrow. Paying yourself first is one of the ideologies of self-care, along with exercising regularly, eating healthily, and finding time for yourself to do the things you love.
The value of paying yourself is not just about finances. The concept of looking out for your future self spills over into every aspect of life. So often in business people put everything else before their self-care. Pay yourself first by allowing yourself that time out to actually enjoying the various aspects of your life.
If you forget to make these critical deposits, when the time comes to reap what you have sown, your body may not have been able to withstand the accumulated years of stress and poor self-care. You may also find yourself alone, as the people who continually got in the way of your work, eventually got out of the way.
Paying yourself first adopts the same philosophy as exercising first thing in the morning – you’re not going to gain any additional health benefits from a 5am wake-up, but you are quite simply less likely to skip the gym session first thing than you are last thing. So, the more you embed the habit, the more you perform the act, the more you entrench self-care and enable you to look after yourself.
Do you need help establishing a routine of self-care? Book a coaching session today (the first session is FREE).