Being self-aware enough to prioritize yourself

‘You gotta make time for yourself.’ Advice from a longtime editor, writer and strategist on how to get the most out of what you’re doing

I'll start this post with a question: How comfortable are you with blocking out distractions so you can prioritize what you need?

I recently had a conversation with Dante A. Ciampaglia—an accomplished editor, writer, editorial strategist, and publisher of the Retronym newsletter. We discussed artificial intelligence's role in the future of digital media, advice for independent journalists, and the specific distractions that are actually worth paying attention to.

A snippet of our conversation focused on—what else?—focus. It left me pondering Dante's advice on being self-aware enough to recognize your own needs:

"I'm sorry, but I'm prioritizing me. And this is something that I've struggled with a lot... so much of our lives is prioritizing other people's time and other people's needs and other people's attention and other people's whatever."

"... friends do this and they don't even know it; I'll do it, I don't even know it, until somebody will call it out. So I know just having that awareness or self-awareness to say, 'I gotta prioritize me at the moment,' and it's not selfish."

What exactly is it when you take that time to focus on what you need? "It's what I need to do right now," Dante said.

Dante talks self-aware

This is an unbelievably poignant message, especially for a father of three like me. We often get so distracted by what is going on with everyone else—and trying to control it—that we ignore what we actually need to be the best version of ourselves.

I've realized that I’m the best writer, the best husband, the best dad, and the best friend when I'm being a bit "selfish."

"You gotta make time for yourself," Dante said. "I mean, if you don't, you get out of balance and then that's when all the bad habits start to come in and the sort of feelings of self-recrimination and doubt and all that stuff. The dark corners where they all fester is when you don't have time for yourself to let your mind do the things that it needs to do."

I find myself telling my kids, "You can't control what others do, only how you react to it." The best way to actually live that advice is to make time to process those feelings and emotions, rather than just squashing them down.

The "best of the best" athletes often reach the pinnacle of their sport not only through skill, but through resiliency. One learns resilience through the tough times, not the good ones. If you aren't self-aware and taking the time to process the "negative," I feel you could be missing the ultimate "positive" that comes out of it.

OK, enough "me time." I'm gonna go play with my kids.