A Talk on Self Care With FrenchMarbles!

Talker: @FrenchMarbles

What is your idea of spending a balanced time on 7cups? Share your idea of how a good day looks like on 7cups, for you.

Hi! My name is FrenchMarbles, I’ve been a listener here since 13th of May 2014 so I feel I’ve been here for decades and witnessed a lot of changes throughout the website. I do start off the day with me checking through the forums, almost like reading the morning news. I know I will have people messaging me throughout the night as I am on UK time and most of my regular members are in america, but I avoid them until the afternoon so I can stay focused and have more energy.

What challenges did you face in trying to strike that balance?

I know how tempting it is to answer every single message, answering every single general request, but over the years I’ve been here, I realized it isn’t realistic for me to do that. I need to have some me time, I need to enjoy the website without being hounded with requests.

How did you try to deal with those challenges?

I do admit I go through phases of wanting to take on as many roles as possible and then burning myself out, or I’ll forget what I’m meant to be doing, what I do is very simple, get a pen and paper, write down all the roles you have, and work out how long you spend on each of them.

What are the benefits of improving your balance for the time you spend on cups?

Quality over quantity, 100%, I know people see that regularly and what I mean by that is, I know I would rather have 10 high quality conversations using my active listening skills than 100 conversations that were short and unhelpful.

What message would you like to give to the cupsers who have come to be negatively attached to cups, in one of the many ways?

I know when we all begin our journeys on 7Cups, we want to help as many people as possible but that isn’t realistic, it’s like going to a water deprived country with a single bottle of water, technically you could give everyone a small teeny weeny droplet and your bottle will be emptied soon. You would be better working with a community of people, focusing on certain aspects of the website, reflecting on what you enjoy doing the most, and take away any guilt feeling.

Sources

• Mentor Page: This page lets you browse mentors by their track focus and pick the one you think would be a good fit. Please make sure that your message a mentor who is “accepting mentees”. You can find mentors here.
  
  

• Quality Coaching Form: If you are not looking for a long term mentor but rather someone to coach you on a specific listening skill then quality mentors can help you with that. You can make a quality coaching request by using this form.