Creating Good Support System | #05 #supportsystem #relationship

Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Natalie, and today we're speaking about creating a good support system. I think this is something that's highly, highly overrated. But I think it's one of the reasons I'm able to do as many things as I am. Because. Because you have to consciously build a support system. This means the people in your life, the habits, the routines, the systems around you, the environment around you. Because for you to do your best and to be able to accelerate yourself, to live up to your potential, you need to be able to refill yourself, to replenish yourself, to know yourself, and also to make sure the environment around you is cultivating the best out of you. If you're in a harsh, difficult environment, you're always being drained and taken away from, then you're not able to focus your energy and get what you need done in any different area area of your life. So I think this is something that's overarching across different areas. Whether it's the food you eat, the way you look after your physical body, small habits like having your gym clothes ready or having food prepped in advance or having water by you all the time, having good sleep, having apps or accountability buddies or people you exercise with or play games with or go for matches with, things like that help. So it's about building these things into your support system so that you know for yourself, this is how my life needs to be so that I can operate at my best. And it's a give and take. You know, a lot of these things are dealing with people and relationships. So it's about assessing your relationships in your life and seeing which ones nurture you. Who are the people you are there for? Who are the people you can count on? Where do you spend your time and your energy when you have a window of time, who do you want to check in on? Who do you want to spend time with? Who do you leave? And by the time you leave, you feel so filled up and energized and happy that you saw them and who do you hang out with and you just feel drained and exhausted every time you leave them. You need to be conscious about these things because they all affect your life. You know, I think we think too in a focused way about success, like it's just money or it's just your job or it's just your career. But when I look at success and I think of a successful life, or when I look at old people that I respect and I say old like old old, right? Those people who have lived a full Life. And you ask them questions, they don't just talk about their work. They talk about their whole life experience. Because when you look at how. What a small part of life work is, yeah, it's a big part. It gives you drive and purpose. It pays the bills. It's an important part. But I like to think of life holistically. And when you look at the relationships you have, the experiences you have at the end of your life, that's what you're going to assess. How much did I do? How much did I not do? And so I. That's something, I think, that drives me to make sure I'm doing everything I can all the time, which is exhausting. But you have to also know what replenishes you. And that's why I think, break it down into the different areas of your life and know what you need to live optimally. You know, like when sick or when you're sleep deprived, you're just generally crankier. Your mind is not as clear. You're not doing as much work as you need to be doing. You're not as sharp, right? Because you know that, oh, I didn't sleep well last night. That's why today is not going well. So it's exactly like that. But across all areas of your life, where are the things that you're wasting time on? There are so many women I speak to who want to micromanage every little thing in their household. I'm like, girl, you have a full job. You do not have to go to the supermarket every day. When you've employed all these people in your household, train someone once, let them try it, go with them once or twice, and release it. It is in your mind that you need do all those things yourself. Small things like that free up your time and your energy. Because time and energy are also finite resources. You're not going to get that again. Money, you'll get another salary next month, or you earn something from your business. But your time, your energy that goes for the day is done. You will never get Tuesday's time and energy back. So you have to think, where is my time and energy going? Where am I wasting it? And what also refills my time and energy? I once heard this podcast and this lady said, every morning when you wake up, assess your energy levels for that day. Like before you start the day, before people start taking from you, before you start delivering and giving. Where was your own level? She's like, if your level is not at 70% and above, you really don't have energy. To be giving out anyhow, because getting through the day is going to deplete all your energy. And with your energy going, so does your willpower, so you start to make poorer decisions. I read a study about how people eat worse or give up on their habits and New Year's resolutions or goals and things in the evening because you're tired. If you've been making decisions all day using your willpower, buy it. Evening, you're tired. Even that one I can attest there are so many small things that I've had to build into my life to support me to do what I need to do optimally. And I think because my job has been such a big part of my life and I've been under a lot of pressure from a young age to succeed in my job, for me, I have really spent time assessing how can I optimize everything around me so that my energy is directly for my work first. And any energy that I can cut and cultivate for myself, I can now decide for my health, for my friends, for my family, my relationships, for what I want do and where I want to spend my time. So that's why I've spent a lot of time in this area trying to figure it out. And I think people don't talk about support systems. And you'll notice successful people have really good support systems. Their families, their friends, the people they live with, their workers, their teams, their staff. Because everyone knows we need to support this person in this specific way. People can't help you if you don't ask for help, if you don't communicate it, if you don't know what type of help you need. But it helps you to assess your own energy every day and know what I need my willpower for something like deciding clothes every day eats my head. I don't have patience for that on a Sunday. I know what my week is going to be. Which days I have external meetings, which days I have filming, which days I have internal meetings, which days I'm going to be on a site or I need to be in fancy clothes for a board meeting or I need to travel, I plan all the outfits. Then if I have to wake up in the morning with all the emails and calls and what. And I'm trying to get my and the right energy for the day and I have to choose clothes personally, I can't deal with that. So I do it on a Sunday. All the outfits for the week, they are here with the shoes, with whatever you need to go with them done. I don't have to think about it. Small things like that. That's why I think it's Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. They wear a T shirt and jeans every day to work. Remove that decision from your day. We, the women, do not have that luxury. I can't wear a T shirt and jeans to work, but I've done what I can to remove that from wasting my willpower on a Tuesday morning when I have to go to work. There are small things you can do in your life to optimize them. The people you live with, the people you're around, the time you go to bed, the food you put in your body, the information you put in your mind, cultivating your social media, your news feed, your notifications in your phone. This is all part of support system, I think. Because if I'm now drained from watching people on social media all night I didn't sleep because I was watching this person's story. Then I went to this, then I watched this, that I did this. I'm tired now. I'm going to wake up tired or I'm reading rubbish or things that are negative or things that are stressing me out. That's not helpful to me. I have to make the environment around me pleasant and encouraging. Some of the things to push me to learn, to grow, to make it easy for me to always know what's going on in my sectors. I add those things in my social media and then even the people I spend time with. It's hard to remove people from your life. I know. Especially in our African culture, we can't just cut out people. You know, I see a lot of these therapists and coaches talking about boundaries and energy vampires and you have to remove them from your life. Bro. Have you tried dealing with an African family? You can't tell some relative, I'm removing you from my life. It's not realistic. But you can manage the way you spend time with people, the way you are around them. You learn about your boundaries and you assert them. If you speak to me like this, I will no longer come for your birthday parties. That's just. It is what it is. Cry for my parents if you want. They can't make me come. There are certain things you can do. Yes, Even in our African culture. You can't say it rudely, but you can assert your boundaries. You can explain to people. Thank you for inviting me. Unfortunately, I can't make it this time. But I'll send a gift for your kid or thank you, I will come next time. You have to see where and when you can do things. Personally, I miss a lot of things because I'm always on the move and it, it sucks. And I have FOMO and I wish I was always there. But it has helped me to learn that the world will go on. You know, you don't need to be at every kid's birthday party, every wedding, every wedding meeting, every funeral, every this. I have a huge family like everyone else. I do what I can and when I'm there, I make sure I'm present. And I'm trying to do my best and I'll be helpful, but I won't commit to something that I know I can't do. Your wedding is in that week. I know. I will be out of the country. Let me not lie to you. I can do this for you. I can do the prep, but I won't be there on the day. Be honest. Assert boundaries. Have honest communication with the people that are important to you. This is something I feel like we've worked at in my family, even my extended family. And we're honest with each other. We miss this function, we try to come for this. I can support you in this way. Help me with that. Open communication helps. You don't want to fester resentment, then you're gonna have to see them at Christmas. Then it's gonna be awkward. Then you haven't been to any of their kids parties in the last three years. Ah, you have to think long term for certain things, relationships. I always like to think long term. Is it easier to have a five minute conversation? That's difficult. It's going to be uncomfortable. I'm sorry to let you down. Or I have to bring up this difficult issue and we talk about it and we both move on. Or are we all just going to pretend it hasn't happened? And then every single family function there's going to be this awkward tension. Or this one said that, or that one did this, or this one refused to come for that. Please me, I don't have time for that. You're my relatives. I'm going to see you for the rest of my life. We have to have certain things done, dealt with, because it creates a better environment for me. I don't want to dread going to my cousin's wedding. I need peace. That's something I value. It's part of my support system. The people in your life that are useful and helpful, that bring you joy, that are positive, encourage, be there for them, spend time with them, fill them as well. Because you also can't just drain, drain, drain other people and also what I realized, it's not always the people who you are there for are there for you. Life is not black and white like that. Sometimes the people who are your support system have a different support system for themselves. Sometimes you are the support system for certain people, but they can't be your support system. And, you know, that's okay. We're people, we're all just trying to do our best. And I think taking it upon yourself to be a bit more responsible, accountable, communicate better, that's what we can do as individuals. How other people take it or respond to it or react to it, you can't control, but you can be the best version of yourself in that moment for them and for yourself. And be honest. Yeah, I'm having a hard time at the moment. I can't do this for you. I can't take this on right now. I can't be there for you in this way. Better to be honest than just letting them down on the day and you switch off your phone, you know, I feel some things like that make more sense to me because in the long term, that is creating a better life for me. These are people in my network, in my environment. So it's my responsibility to cultivate these relationships in a positive way, the same I would do at work or with my friends or with my family. Be honest and have these difficult conversations because they make your relationship stronger, and it's better for all of you in the long run. I think with support systems, it really helps because no one is a robot. No one is perfect. No one is a superhero or a machine. We all have hard days. We all need our own support. We're all gonna have moments where we're tired or stressed out, or you need someone to give you a pep talk or to encourage you or to remind you. Sometimes I will tell someone in my life, my friends or my cousins or my siblings or my parents, please, next time you see me doing this, call me out or remind me, or do you want to come to the gym with me or tell me that I've done this, or if I miss it again, remind me. Or give me advance notice so I can be there for this thing. You have to be proactive about these things so that life works in a good way. I feel successful at the end of a week when I feel like I was positive at work. I achieved some of the things I set out to achieve. Trying to achieve everything you know is hard. Make a high list. See how many you can hit. But also, my life was full that week. I laughed, I enjoyed. I learned things. I talked to the people I love, I spent time with them. I was giving and serving to the people I work with, to the people, to the people in my life. I was healthy. I did something good for my body. I'm not, you know, taking it for granted or abusing it. So that's how I assess at the end of every week. Were we successful this week? I don't want to wait till I'm 70 and say, have I had a successful life and then be upset by the results. Being more proactive about that and clear in my values and what's important to me and making time for that has helped me to realize this is what I need to build around myself. I need to protect myself from certain things, like the 1000 DM's I get on social media every day. Yes, a lot of them are useful. Some are comments, some are questions. I want to get to everybody. But if I spend my whole day going through DMs on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, or LinkedIn on TikTok, when will I work? When will I do anything else? Some of them are very annoying, some are mean. I don't need to do that. I don't need to deal with that. That is not the best use of my time and energy. So you build a system so that there's people around you who can filter, who can see. Sometimes people complain about the auto response on my Instagram. I have that for a reason. Nothing is just by accident. It's these things that help to protect me and my energy so I can be the best I can be. You want to watch my reels on Instagram? Please don't complain when you get autoresponds. We will get to it as soon as we can. And I do and try my best to respond to everything within a few weeks, but I have to do that, otherwise I can't work and I can't do what I need to do, what needs my energy in that moment. But I feel like being proactive about these things and trying to be aware has really helped me. And I think it helps to build a better life that's more sustainable. You know, we all have that friend who's like, I'm going to stop eating all these different things this month. No sugar, no carbs, no alcohol, no this, no this. Within a month, if they even make it a month, they're full and completely right. Because you don't want to try and change too many things. It's not sustainable. You don't want to try and upend your whole life. Okay, I'm cutting myself off from everyone. Don't call me, don't invite me for any parties for six months. I have ACCA exams and then you find that 10 person out without you. I think people mean well when they say these things. But me, I think life is long. I learnt that from Gary Vee. People keep saying life is short, life is long. And I don't want to be good at life for one month and then be not good at life for three months according to my own standard. So I try to put things in my life that are sustainable and I think a support system is sustainable. No man is an island. We all need people around us, we all need help, we all need support, we need encouragement, we need motivation. When you succeed at something, who do you tell? Who do you call? Who is going to be proud of you and happy for you? When you're struggling, Who? Or you're scared or you don't know what to do? Where do you turn? When you're tired and depleted and you need to get your energy back, what do you do? We all need to know our go tos. Sometimes I'm exhausted physically. And it's not just sleep that I will need. I need something else energetically. Is it? I need to watch something that's inspirational. Do I need to go spend time with someone who is fun and interesting and their life is completely different from mine? I like having friends like that. It takes me out the of of my own stress and worry and chaos and into a whole other world. And then I'm left inspired and uplifted and I'm ready to dive back into work. But I had to learn these things about myself. Sometimes it's as simple as playing a song. I am stressed out. Someone has been shouting. This one has that problem. The whole day has just been going crazy. I just sit in the car for two minutes, put one song, breathe. It's gonna be okay. The world is not ending. By the time the song is over, I feel a bit better. I can go into the next thing. These are the pieces of your support system that you are responsible for. Don't take your bad mood and bad energy and pour it all over other people who didn't do anything to deserve that. Even those who didn't deserve it. We have to learn how to communicate in a better way. You know, pause, breathe, calm down before you respond. But these small things help you to live, I think in a more sustainable way. So that as much as you're juggling you don't feel like you're dropping balls all the time. And I think it took me many years to learn how to do that. Okay, I'm doing well at work, I'm doing well at family. My friend's ball is completely down. I haven't seen anyone in two months. I remember one of my friends came to my office. I had been living in the hotel for three months. She had not seen me. She was like, this is not healthy. I have come to physically take you out of the hotel and remind you there's a world out there because I was working too much. So you need to have a better balance, I think. I think balance is not a myth. I think if you have balance overall, that's why I wouldn't say have a successful day, a successful week, a successful month, or this month. I didn't do so well. I've not been sleeping enough. I missed this birthday or this wedding, or I didn't get to work at this time, or we didn't manage to hit this target. Nothing is perfect, but it still helps for me at least, to aim high, to put these things in place and then to try and achieve them all the time. And the more you get used to striving and achieving, you start to kind of get the hang of it, and then they're all kind of juggling themselves as you go. Nothing is perfect all the time, but nothing is also dropping all the time. Nothing goes below a certain level. So I think that for me, is the journey of maturing as an adult and taking control of my own life, to juggle my own balls, not what other people have told me are my values. And what should be important to me. What's important to me are the things that I am trying to constantly manage in my life, and I have to put energy on those things, and I have to be conscious about it and I have to reflect on it and assess it. Did I do that? Do I need to conserve energy for this, this week? Is it this kind of a week where we're going to do board meetings back to back or filming back to back? What's going to take my energy? Where does my head need to be at? Where do I need to physically be? What do I need to do to prepare or protect myself? Because no one else is going to do these things for us. You know, this is what it means to be an adult, to figure these things out and, you know, do them every day. No one is checking on us and feeding us and, you know, did you sleep or did you eat or did you watch? Yeah. Your loved ones care, but you are a big person. Please, you have to look after yourself. And the more I do it, the more I also encourage everyone around me to do it. I'm not your mom as much as I'm your sister or your friend or your cousin or your boss. I care. But you are an adult and I also expect you to look after yourself and make sure you are living your life in a way, way that is successful to you. It doesn't have to be perfect, but as long as we keep trying, I feel like that's the perfection that we are seeking. That's the part of the journey. And the more you learn and the more you teach and the more you grow, we all like move and grow and learn together, which I think is a useful system. So look at yourself and your life. What do you need? What are your emotional needs, your physical needs, your life needs, not just what builds do I have to pay this month? What else are your needs? You are full human being. You're not a robot in an office. So what do you need to keep you going that sustains you, that replenishes you, that supports you to be the best version of you that you can be? Once you start to identify those things, you can start to plug them in your life. Once a month, I'm going to take a day for myself. I'm going to read or I'll go running or I'm going to spend time with my kids or my cousins or my friends. You figure out these pieces of your life and then you build them in and then that's your life that you carved for yourself and you have earned for yourself. And then you gain that momentum and it gets easier and it gets fuller and it gets easier. Yeah, it is. Because you feel like you know how to handle yourself more as you learn and as you grow. And I feel like that helps you deal with uncertainty in a stronger way. You have more confidence in yourself, in your abilities, in what you can deliver and what you know is possible because you've been realistic, you are reasonable, and you've succeeded at it for yourself, even if it's in small ways. Take the small wins, praise yourself, encourage yourself, because that's how they grow into big wins. And then that's how you grow into who you are trying to be. At least that's what I.