In helping to lead a growing group of healthcare experts speakers in a community on FB (which you can join by becoming a SPEAKING PORTFOLIO member on SoMeDocs, I mentally-sifted through my week in an attempt to share a piece of advice in that niche.

It came to me fairly quickly: I had recently made a difficult decision to give myself – and my ambitious goals – permission to pause.

I needed that break. The ‘why’ at the core of it all doesn’t even matter at this moment. I just knew that I had too.

This meant that I needed to turn down some of the really cool offers that were coming my way: the fruits of years of my online labor. I had to turn down amazing opportunities afforded to me due to none other than my own hard work.

But I listened to my ‘why’ and I turned them down. I pushed past the guilt and the FOMO and the surprise (it often becomes an out-of-body experience to hear yourself turning something significant down), and turned my back. Temporarily.

And I’m glad that I did. While spending time away from clinical medicine these last few years, I began to pay much needed attention to myself, and my own needs.

I’ve learned how to read internal cues over this precious time away, because I haven’t been tending to others’ needs in the same factory-style environment that has become so much a part of healthcare. Because I’m not currently a cog in the healthcare wheel, I have time to open my eyes and look around, and to begin to understand that my own body needs care, in order to prevent it from breaking down.

I’m better attuned to my body today, and to its abilities to take new things on. I’m also better attuned to the fact that there’s value to sitting still. To resting. And to not feeling like I need to take part in every opportunity that comes my way. That other opportunities can – and will – come.

So my message for the day is simple.

It’s ok to say no, especially if it means saying yes to yourself.