Stop Living on Leftovers: How High-Achieving Women Reclaim Their Time
If you are someone who never seems to have enough time for yourself, you are always going and doing for everybody else, this is for you. I'm going to share the one shift that I made so that I always had time for myself on the calendar—and you will never believe how I figured this shift out. It came from making dinner.
That night, I made dinner for my family. I called everyone to the table and watched them fill their plates.
After making sure everyone had what they needed, it was my turn, except there wasn’t much left. Just enough to keep me from being hungry, but not enough to feel full.
I remember sitting at the table, my son asking, "Is that enough food for you?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," I replied, seething quietly and thinking:
“Never again. Never again will I give myself what is left.”
It hit me in that moment that this wasn’t just about dinner. It was a mirror for how I’d been living my life. I had been giving everyone else the best of me—my time, my energy, my attention—and leaving only scraps for myself.
And I see it in nearly every high-performing, high-achieving woman I work with. Brilliant, capable women who give and give until their own needs are an afterthought. If that’s you, this is for you.
Because the reality is: The way to always have time for yourself is to serve yourself first.
The Rule That Changes Everything
The one shift, the one rule that I make that allows me to always have time for myself is to serve myself first.
This one shift—serving yourself first—changed my attitude that night at dinner. But it also transformed how I approached my work, my relationships, and my life.
Too often, we block our calendars with everyone else’s priorities: the meetings, the conferences, the board trips. Then we layer on family commitments: practices, events, aging parents. When it’s all said and done, there’s nothing left but scraps. Five- and ten-minute slivers that get swallowed up by urgency.
Serving yourself first rewrites that pattern. It ensures you have not just enough, but the best—prime pickings, as we say.
How to Apply This Rule: Three Levels
You can apply this on three levels: macro, micro, and mini.
Level 1: Macro Level (Annual/Quarterly)
At level three, we zoom out and look at our annual calendar and block out time for ourselves first. It's almost like what we do for board meetings, which we all treat like the biggest of rocks. The unmovable, the things we are willing to schedule our whole lives around.
(Yes, you are going to treat concentrated time with yourself like that.)
For me, I choose one week per quarter. I go someplace spacious, luxurious, spirit-nurturing, and away from the noise. And yes, I book and pay in advance. It signals to myself: this matters. Plus, I'm much less likely to balk or back out of something I've already paid for.
This is akin to taking a step back, but for me, the person, and not my job.
Notice the Resistance
Now, at this point, you might be feeling resistance. You might hear yourself saying, "I can't do that. What if someone needs me? What if something comes up at work? It just feels selfish."
Good. It should feel uncomfortable. You are disrupting your default. You are breaking up with the version of you who is always available to and for everyone else but herself. This is change. This is growth. This is your evolution. This is aligning your actions with who and how you mean to be.
And here’s some perspective: 16 days is less than 5% of your year. You still have more than 95% for everything and everyone else.
Are you not deserving of 5% of your life?
Level 2: Micro Level (Weekly/Monthly)
Now, zoom in. Apply the same 5% rule to your weeks and months. That’s about 2 hours a week or 8 hours a month.
And now I know you're thinking, "Ma'am, I barely have time to tie my shoes. I can't wake up any earlier or go to sleep any later."
You are absolutely right. You don’t “find” 2 hours a week. You reclaim them.
Many of my clients either:
Block 90 minutes on Saturday mornings (in community with me through the Beyond Success Cohort).
Or they practice Me First Mondays, giving themselves the first fruits of every week—60 minutes on Monday, 30–45 minutes on Friday.
This is about serving yourself first and letting everyone else schedule around that.
Level 3: Mini Level (Daily)
Finally, bring the rule into the daily level. These are the micro-moments that breathe life back into you, and serving yourself first becomes your new way of being.
This could look like:
Taking five deep breaths before opening email.
Stepping outside for ten minutes of sunlight.
Calling a friend in the middle of the day just to laugh.
Taking lunch away from your desk and reading a novel while you eat.
Literally serving yourself first at dinner.
Daily firsts remind you that not only do your joy and nourishment matter, but when you put yourself first, it reinvigorates and recharges you, reminding you that you are a whole person, not just the role you play or the titles you have.
Want help applying this shift?
My Beyond Busy resource guide ($17) walks you through a mini-audit process that shines a light on where your time is leaking away. It also includes a bonus 20 Reflection Questions for Aligned Leaders. Beyond Busy is a simple way to start reclaiming that 5% of your time—today.
Safeguarding Your Time
While we've blocked the time on our calendar, we both know that blocked time can still get moved, skipped, or ignored. That’s why we have to safeguard it—make it sacred.
How do we do that? We build in accountability and use our deep desire not to disappoint others to our advantage:
Make a commitment to yourself on paper. Make a promise to yourself, a contract signed and posted. This will be your daily reminder to practice (not perfect) serving yourself first.
Enlist support. This can look like a conversation with your executive assistant, your partner, or a friend who won’t let you wiggle out of your commitment. It can also look like joining a community of people who are, like you, committing to putting themselves and their development first.
Invest in it. Whether we like it or not, we often commit at the level of our financial investment. Plainly put: when you pay, you pay attention.
The reality is, you’ve spent years building a life that works and benefits everybody else. This is about building a life that works for you, not at the expense of others, but in service to and in gratitude for yourself. You won’t always get this right, but the more you practice and the more support you have, the better you’ll be.
The Deeper Shift
Serving ourselves first and putting ourselves on the calendar isn’t really about time. It’s about identity. It is about seeing ourselves differently. It’s about sunsetting the long-held belief that our value and our worth come from what we produce.
You cannot create a spacious, joy-filled life while still operating from the belief that your worth is proven by what you give away.
This shift—claiming your own time as sacred—is how you begin to reorient your entire life.
The resistance you feel? It isn’t proof that you shouldn’t do it. It’s proof that you’re evolving—outgrowing the version of you who thought she had to live on leftovers.
Putting It All Together
When you apply the Serve Yourself First principle to your life, you get:
16 full, expansive days for you to do/not do whatever fuels you
2 hours per week for personal reflection, development, and stillness
Daily mini-moments to recharge, breathe, and be
Support system to help you be accountable to yourself and ease your transition into this new way of being
In the end, you’ll have created a way of being that no longer demands depletion as proof of your value—but instead thrives on you caring for yourself first.
And that is a beautiful thing.
A New Way Forward
You've given so much of yourself to everyone else. Now it's your turn.
Imagine a year where your best energy, your best time, your best ideas are no longer scraps but prime pickings—where your calendar reflects not just what matters to others, but what matters most to you.
That shift starts with one decision: to serve yourself first.
And yes, it will feel uncomfortable at first. That’s the point. You’re disrupting the old default—the one that told you your worth was proven by what you gave away. But you’re not here to keep proving. You’re here to evolve into the most expansive version of yourself.
If you're ready to stop living on leftovers and start designing a life that feels spacious, joyful, and deeply aligned, I'd love to walk with you. Together, we’ll reclaim that 5% of your year—and expand it into so much more.
Hi, I’m Aisha–
A life and leadership coach who helps high-achieving women create more margin, joy, and fulfillment in their lives by shifting from a life centered on success to a life rooted in significance. She leads retreats, workshops, and coaching programs that empower women to align their lives with their deepest values. I’m so glad you’re here.
