Thursday Thoughts: Fit Your Oxygen Mask First
Every Thursday, I share a moment of reflection. Sometimes personal. Sometimes strategic. Always grounded in truth.
This week’s thought is simple but powerful: Fit your oxygen mask before helping others.
You’ve heard it on every plane. But in leadership, community work, and cultural advocacy, it becomes more than safety advice — it becomes survival wisdom. I never used to believe that. For years, my default priority list looked like this: Work. Family. Friends. Greater community. Fun.
Health and wellbeing didn’t even make the cut.
In hindsight, that list and the way I lived it caused me serious harm. I felt guilty for training. Guilty for walking. Guilty for taking time out. Even during Victoria’s COVID lockdowns, when walking the dog was one of the few safe outlets we had, I remember a colleague joking, “You’re always walking the dog when I call, do you ever work?.” What I couldn’t say back then was: That walk was keeping me sane.
That guilt ran deep.
Even after I badly hurt my back to the point where I could barely walk 100 metres without it seizing I still didn’t prioritise myself. I couldn’t pick up my kids. I felt weak, disconnected, and stuck. And still, I felt guilty for wanting to exercise. Guilty and selfish — as if taking care of myself was somehow letting everyone else down.
But as I was developing the SAFE Method, something shifted. I realised that without my own wellbeing, I am no good to anyone. Not to my clients. Not to my kids. Not to my community and definitely not to myself.
That was a defining moment in my life.
I rewrote my priorities, for the first time ever, starting with what matters most:
Health and Wellbeing.
Then: Daughters and Wife. Culture. Friends. Fun. Work.
Not the other way around.
And you know what happened?
Everything got better.
I let go of the guilt. I gave myself permission to rest, to move, to rebuild. There’s no guilt now when I run, when I walk Bingo, or when I say no to things that stretch me too far. That decision to put health first has since translated into 121 gym sessions and 140 kilometres of running.
It’s not about the numbers. It’s about who I became by showing up for myself.
And this past weekend? I ran a 2km fun run with my daughters. My 6-year-old ran the whole way. My 4-year-old nearly did.
Health and wellbeing matter to them too — and they see it, because they see me living it.
The oxygen mask metaphor is no longer theory.
It’s a daily practice. Some days, my list shifts work takes the front seat, or community does. But health and wellbeing never fall off the list again.
It’s the constant. The non-negotiable. The foundation.
So this Thursday, I want to remind you: There is no shame in prioritising yourself. No guilt in resting. No selfishness in choosing wellness.
Put your mask on first — because that’s how we lead for the long haul. Thank you to Lisa for giving me the idea for this Thursday Thought!
