I got sick and it was my fault. I like to think that drinking water with lemon and Purelling my hands every time I touch a door nob will keep me from getting sick… but it happened. And I feel like going underneath my duvet and never coming out. 

It came in stages… first it was waking up with a sore throat (to which I responded to by pouring a bag of raspberry-flavored EMERGEN-C into the closest cup of water I could find). 

Then, it was the sneeze. That sneeze where you just know it’s coming… and there’s no preventing it. 

So… here I am… five days later sitting in bed with all of the symptoms of a flu. Looking very attractive, I might add. Oh, and our new project (which is where you’re reading this!) is about to go live. And I haven’t been to the office in THREE DAYS. 

But in the middle of hoarding tissues, sneezing, and watching Flip or Flop with one eye open, I finally realized something… I had kind of asked for this. I hadn’t been taking care of myself like I should have… and instead of putting my health and wellness first, I had been giving into cravings and long work hours. Sure, I was drinking lemon and water, but that didn’t matter because I wasn’t allowing myself to get eight hours of sleep, my diet had consisted of croissants and sugar, and I was overly stressing myself out. 

You see… sometimes in life we THINK we’re putting ourselves first when we’re actually not. I may have THOUGHT I was “rewarding” myself with sweets after a long day or THOUGHT that working through the night was a path to productiveness, but it actually wasn’t. If I had truly wanted to reward myself or work for my own success I would have paid attention to my limits… and not challenged them. 

I am now convinced that had I put my body’s health, wellness, and well-being first, I wouldn’t be in this germ-infested bed. I would be working… and not losing the precious hours of productiveness that are now causing me to stress eat brownies.

Working too hard, stressing out, and not eating right may be rewarding in the short term… but not the long term. This isn’t a sustainable way to live… and I’ve realized this way too late. So I urge all of you career-focused and ambitious bosses out there to do one thing today…. listen to your body. 

It will tell you what it needs, and if you treat it well, you might not end up in bed with DayQuil spilling out of your sheets and a jam-packed schedule for the next two weeks.