Are you starting to exceed your personal bandwidth? What do I mean by personal bandwidth? I use the term personal bandwidth to describe your personal capacity to do the things that matter to you and live a fulfilled life. This personal capacity relates to your mind, body, emotions and spirt and includes your time, energy, skills, emotions and effort. And yes, your personal bandwidth is something that is unique to you!
Discovering My Own Personal Bandwidth
A few years ago now, when I was struggling with burnout, there were days when I literally couldn’t get out of bed as I didn’t have any energy. Over time, I realised that I needed to stop punishing and start listening to my body, stop people pleasing and comparing myself to others, create boundaries, recognise my own needs, stop trying to be perfect and realise life is messy as well as stop overcommitting and being overwhelmed and start simplifying life.
6 Things I’ve Realised Since Monitoring My Personal Bandwidth
Following are six (6) things I have realised since starting to monitor my own personal bandwidth –
1. I Needed to Take Care of Me
I could leave it here really as this was one of my biggest learnings in life really and in many ways, why I am so passionate about wellbeing and supporting womxn to look after themselves through self-care. Simply it is that metaphor – put the facemark on your self and then assist others. You can see more about this in the graphic below –
“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” ~ Aldous Huxley
2. I Have Limited Time
Yes truly – we only have a limited amount of time in the day, week, month and year. If we are lucky, each week we are gifted 168 hours to choose to invest how we would like, so it is important that we do. Steve Jobs said it so well –
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
3. I Have Limited Energy
Have you ever noticed your energy changes when you do different activities? For me, some activities will quickly drain my energy and some will increase it. This is why I need to be aware of my own battery as I am not an energiser bunny. I have realised I have limited energy a day and it is important to identify how I am truly going to utilise it. It reminds me of the “Spoons Theory“. As Oprah Winfrey has been quoted as saying –
“Energy is the essence of life. Every day you decide how you’re going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach that goal, and by maintaining focus.”
4. I Needed to Create Healthy Boundaries
When I started to learn about my own needs and what I needed to function effectively as a human being (and not so much as a human doing), I recognised that I needed to create healthy boundaries. For me, the following image shows what healthy and unhealthy boundaries look like –
Creating healthy boundaries took a lot of courage for me, which is one of the reasons why I created boundaries with courage.
“When you say ‘Yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘No’ to yourself!” ~ Paulo Coelho
5. I Needed to Identify My Stressors
As a highly sensitive person (HSP), I have identified what impacts my stress levels. Yes, it has taken a while, however am grateful I now know. What stresses you in your life ? Is there are cost to that stress? It is important to note, stress is important for life (i.e. eustress), however when I have too much it effects my personal bandwidth. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says –
“It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.”
6. I Function Better When I Listen to My Body
This one took a while to learn as I needed to relearn how to listen to my body. When it comes to listening to the inner wisdom of my body, there are several ways we can tune in to it and I have created a graphic to show them below –
Some specific examples of ways you can start to listen to your body include listening to your –
- hunger cues to decide when it is time to eat,
- fullness cues to decide when to stop eating,
- taste and satiety cues to decide what to eat, and
- sensations within the body to decide what movement is pleasurable and what is not (helps in avoiding injuries).
“Be willing to stop punishing yourself for your mistakes. Love yourself for your willingness to learn and grow.” ~ Louise Hay
Over to You…
I hope this post has give you some insight in to personal bandwidth. If you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments.
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