How to Refill Your Empty Cup

Filling your cup isn’t easy. We live in an age where exhaustion is worn like a badge, and burnout is celebrated. When you’re a business owner, rest simply doesn’t happen unless you schedule it in.

When I started my business, I was already a mother and a wife, and it took destroying my health for me to learn how to fill my cup.

Like the adage of the 21st century, I became an entrepreneur because I was after flexibility. I wanted to be involved in my children’s lives — which is why, when I woke up four years later with a medically-prescribed heart rate monitor strapped to me and a severe anxiety diagnosis, I knew that everything was about to collapse around me. My NDIS business connected incredible carers with people who needed help. I never imagined that overnight, everything would change.

I walked away. I handed the business over to one of my managers and said goodbye to everything: my intellectual property, my brand, my team and even my clients. The carers could keep their jobs but I would no longer be in that picture. The one thing I did not leave behind? My reputation. I love that the phone rang off the hook and that everyone in the industry wanted advice from me, but learning how to fill my cup has been the change that brought me to my happily ever after.

Today, I coach NDIS businesses and one of the most important survival strategies I consider a must-have for entrepreneurs is knowing how to refill your cup. There’s no one-size-fits-all. Some might love a bubble bath, but others might not. Contrary to the message the wine-and-dine mindset would tell you, I also do not believe that refilling your cup fulfils a static definition. Your needs change, and how you refill your cup should also change.

I teach people to refill their cup by rebuilding a connection to themselves and paying attention to what they’re really needing, because it sneaks into your language and typically, you don’t even notice. When you start seeing the statement “I am” as a boundary, it changes everything.

I remember reading about people creating boundaries and thinking it was all about learning to say no, but it is actually bigger and also simultaneously simpler than that. It is about saying “I am.” These two words create a clear definition around yourself, putting a container around yourself and everything that follows those words. Take a simple phrase, like “I am tired.” Instead of simply seeing that as a statement, see it as a phrase that is communicating a need you have — in this case, rest. What I love about this approach is it doesn’t require you to do anything other than pay attention to your own “I am” thoughts and interpret them.

Choosing a mindset of radical accountability when it comes to filling your cup and taking care of your mental health means aligning your day’s agenda with the thoughts that follow “I am” statements.

Perhaps it is Monday morning, and you find yourself saying, “I am tired. I do not feel as though I rested this weekend.” When you hear the need behind the statement, you move into a powerful position. “I am tired. I do not feel as though I rested this weekend. For that reason, I will reschedule the admin I planned for this afternoon and instead have a screen-free walk in nature (or whatever might actually be restful).”

The part of your brain that jumps to defence and thinks about tomorrow’s potential bottleneck — tomorrow, you will be more rested than you are today. You know this is true because today you would have honoured that “I am” statement, and rested.

These days, being a coach means I shape my own schedule. I’ve built daily rhythms and rituals that keep my cup full. I love burning oils in my essential oil diffuser in the office each morning, and I love taking the dog for a walk along the beach as a way to end my day. I’ve also learned that filling my cup often comes from connection. I lean on a sisterhood of friends who also run businesses — we have space to vent, laugh, and hold each other accountable. I’m grateful, too, for a supportive husband who shares the load of home and children, which means I never carry it all alone.

What I know now is that these practices aren’t luxuries; they are survival strategies. They allow me to show up fully for my clients, my family, and myself. And the beauty of it is this: your version of a full cup may look completely different from mine. What matters is that you notice the whispers in your own “I am” statements, honour them, and give yourself permission to refill in the way you most need.

This article is featured in Wellbeing Magazine 223