Last week, someone passed through the cubicles at work with a reminder I think my ears needed to hear. A heart check, if you will. 

As the weeks of the year wind down, I find myself in a very reflective state when it comes to my business, LoveMo. The reflection is primarily based in forward-thinking strategy and dreaming, but “you can’t really know where you’re going, until you know where you’ve been” (Maya Angelou) so often, my reflection takes me back to 2016. The Monique of 2016 was pushing down her entrepreneurial heart to climb the corporate ladder of success. After 5-6 years of total burnout, she landed a more mellow gig back in the hotel industry and wound up working alongside someone who was building a side business they’d soon quit to pursue full time. 

I was only at that job 8 months, but looking back, I realize it was enough. It was the final 8 months of my co-worker’s stint working for “the man” and what she showed me in that time was absolutely invaluable. The belief she had in me during those months, and the way she encouraged me day after day to build something of my own, was truly the catalyst for the mindset I have now to pursue something MORE. When I walked away from that job and into the next, LoveMo (at the time, unnamed) was heavy on my mind. It’s safe to say that my corporate work life was never the same after that. 

From that point forward, my core motivator was no longer money and success, but rather impact and time. It’s no coincidence that my faith was growing at the same time and I was beginning to understand just how uniquely God had wired me. As I began to pay more and more attention to a small business concept that felt “right” to me, LoveMo was birthed. Y’all can read the full story HERE. Rooted in self care, the notion for one to take care of themselves FIRST is something I felt so deeply for. And still do. As someone who still (yes, to this very day) can navigate her way into the land of burnout without directions, I fight against the “performer” in me to be the hero. To do all. To be all. To sacrifice all. So when my ears catch the following echoing around the office, it was the reminder I needed to hear in that very moment:

The first part’s a little dark, sure. But it gets the point across, does it not?

Don’t sacrifice yourself… for the sake of fill-in-your-own-blank.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said the whole bus line before – quick to push something like that on my workaholic mother, without ever drinking it in for myself. I get my workaholism from her. Her GRIND has woven itself firmly into all three of her children. She works too many hours, in my opinion, for someone on the cusp of retirement. And I urge her often to put herself first, likely inserting something like the bus line above. Often times our conversations bring to mind a comment she made around the time of Granddad’s passing in 2008. As we processed back to back losses of both of grandparents, one year apart, she said “My whole world just changed forever and yet all around me, people are moving on with life.” That bus comment last week reminded me of that statement. How life continues. It always goes on. So even if we get a little bit “selfish” and take time for ourselves, guess what? Life goes on.

Work will still get done.

People will figure it out.

The plates will keep on spinning.

It’s critical that we care for ourselves. 

I smiled when I heard this conversations happening around the office. A place of chaos for me recently was sprinkled with two words that I hold dear to my heart. Two words that were revealed a number of years ago.

Two words I studied and practiced and LIVED for so long in order to build something that felt more true to me than any position I’ve ever held.

And two words I long to get back to – not just for the actual care my body needs, but for a business I miss pouring into desperately. A business I know God wired in me to impact His people.

Two words.

SELF. CARE.