Work Hard, But Don't Lose Your Sense of Fulfillment and Empowerment When you're building the life and business of your dreams, utilize these two methods of taking care of yourself.

When I first set out to build my business and the life of my dreams, I forgot one important ingredient: To care, nurture and love myself first and foremost.

I started to see some big success in year three of my business, but I couldn't wrap my head around why I was feeling miserable and lost. After months of dissecting the situation, it was easy to see that I was so focused on building the life and business of my dreams while completely neglecting my own mental, physical and spiritual health.

That is something that you never want to happen, because once you lose a sense of fulfillment and empowerment, everything you do will start to feel as if you are just going through the motions and coasting along. It's a surefire recipe to become miserable and live beneath your full potential.

Related: Silence That Little Voice Telling You to Suck It Up and Press On

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for hustling and working harder and smarter than everyone else. That was the blueprint as to how I was able to overcome a teenage drug addiction that nearly killed me to then having the opportunity to go on to play in the National Football League. But you must never forget to care for yourself.

Here are two ways to empower your life immediately that will ultimately help serve your business and professional success as well.

1. Discover the incredible power of stillness.

This one was a life changer for me. My whole life leading up to discovering the incredible power of stillness was predicated on moving fast, quickly and constantly. It still is to an extent, but my biggest issue back then was never taking the time to just slow down and be still for even a couple minutes a day.

When I refer to stillness, I am referring to a number of different things: mediation, prayer, thinking in solitude, journaling in the presence of beautiful mother nature and just slowing down some way, somehow every day.

We live in a busy world, and it's imperative to find time daily to escape the noise and get in tune with yourself. Maybe you have another way of escaping the noise. Whatever that may be for you, I encourage you to make time for it every day.

When I started to adopt some of the practices that I mentioned, my peace of mind alone was instantly and drastically noticeable. Practicing stillness and searching for solitude throughout my day has changed not only my success in the game of business, but most important, in my health and overall well-being.

Related: Working Long Hours Could Kill You

2. Love yourself.

I have written so much and speak all the time on the topic of how important it is to love your customers, team members and the process of where you are to where you want to go, but haven't spent as much time on a major factor in being able to do all of the above exceptionally well: To love yourself.

Loving yourself is taking time for you. Loving yourself is taking time off if you feel the rate that you are going is unhealthy. Loving yourself is never neglecting your well-being, values and characteristics that define who you are as a person for monetary gain or professional advancement. Loving yourself gives power over your life.

One of the major reasons why so many successful men and women lose the empowerment in their lives that once ignited them is their lack of love and nourishment towards themselves. Continue to work ridiculously hard and become the absolute best at what you do, but don't forget to love yourself along the way. No one can love you to the extent that you want them to if you don't love yourself first.

It's easy to forget about yourself when you are striving to achieve the audacious goals that you have for your life and business, but discovering the incredible power of stillness and loving yourself are two practical and easy ways to empower your life immediately.

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