Whatever your age, we all have jobs in life. They might be trivial jobs that our parents assign us as kids or they might be important jobs that our bosses and superiors assign us in the professional workplace. But what is your number 1 job in life?
The holiday season is certainly an eagerly anticipated time for many children (and adults) as we count down the sleeps until the last day of school, or count down for when someone comes to visit or the family leaves for a big trip etc.
This can be a super special time for many but can also be a time when we tend to neglect ourselves and forget our Number 1 job.
In order to ensure the holiday joy is continued from beginning to end and into the New Year we simply need to remember and live our Number 1 job.
Having been with children in either a formal or informal setting for most of my life and even having been a child myself (ha!), I’ve got quite a lot of life experience in this area.
Through this time:
- I’ve seen bruises, scrapes, scratches and scars that kids gather as they rough and tumble through life.
- I’ve seen the consequences of accidents, illnesses and generally of people ‘not looking after their bodies’ to their full potential.
- I’ve observed through life how we all (including myself) have tended to ignore that we have a physical body until something goes wrong with it.
- I’ve seen the consequences as we let routine and rhythm go out the door and adapt a way of living that does not support our potential.
- I’ve seen the ill effects of children holding back, shrinking and not feeling safe to express all that is there for them to express.
- I’ve known without any doubt the impact that occurs when children of all ages (0 to 100+) do not live honouring their most important job.
- I’ve seen first hand the natural consequences of not living our Number 1 job.
Working in a childcare setting as a young adult, I started sharing with children the need to look after their bodies. As we put Dettol and Band-Aids on fresh scrapes, we would talk about what they could do differently to look after their bodies as they played. We often discussed that it was ‘your body’ and ‘you are in charge of making sure your body is safe and looked after at all times’. We would discuss how important it was for them to share how they feel and that they did not need to pretend to be tough when their knee or elbow was hurting.
It became common language that their Number 1 job is to look after themselves. Children then knew that when they did their Number 1 job, they could do everything else in life joyfully.
This message has continued into our behaviour specialist practice where we now tell children of all ages (0 to 100+) that to prepare for their day, week, year or life ahead we need to live in a way knowing that our body is the most important tool we have — our body goes with us to kindy, school, work, family events and into all parts of our life. Thus, our Number 1 job is to support and love our body in every way to help it live its full potential.
So, in preparation for our upcoming holiday period, which is in fact a preparation period for our next year and next part of life, we simply need to ask ourselves “Are we living our Number 1 job?”
This article was originally published in the December 2015 Edition of Haven Magazine.
My Number 1 Job is a children’s book from Fabic Publishing that can be purchased from the Fabic Shop
