Why Protecting Your Anchors Feels Selfish (and Isn’t)

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Last week I wrote about the three anchors worth protecting when your summer routine falls apart: one body anchor, one connection anchor, one that’s just yours. Sounds pretty simple on paper, but that’s not always the case. So I wasn’t surprised when I heard from some of you saying it felt selfish.

Not the body anchor, usually. Nobody argues with you about sleep. It’s the other two. The call with your friend when your kid wants your attention right now. The five minutes with your coffee before the house wakes up, except someone woke up early too. The drive home with the music up, except now someone needs a ride and that quiet ten minutes is gone before it started.

You protect it once. You feel guilty. You let it slide “just this once.” And once turns into the anchor quietly disappearing again, same as everything else did in June.

I’m sorry to say, but anchors are going to feel selfish, but that feeling isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong.

Why It Feels That Way

Anchors feel selfish because they’re the only thing on your list that doesn’t directly serve someone else. The laundry serves the household. The work serves the paycheck. The errands serve everyone’s Tuesday running smoothly. The anchor just serves you, and if you’ve spent any real stretch of your life being the one who holds everything together, “just serves you” reads as a red flag, not a relief.

It’s not that you think you don’t deserve five minutes of quiet. It’s that you’ve been trained – by circumstance, by role, by years of being the reliable one – to treat your own needs as the thing that gets cut first when anything else needs the room. So when you protect an anchor instead of cutting it, it feels like you’re taking something from someone else. Even when you’re not.

What’s Actually True

Nobody in your house is worse off because you got your coffee in quiet. In fact, they’re worse off, long-term, if you don’t because the version of you running on zero anchors is not more available to them. She’s just more depleted while doing it.

Protecting your anchor isn’t choosing yourself over the people who need you. It’s the thing that keeps you able to show up for them without running on empty for the rest of the summer.

What To Do With the Guilt Anyway

The guilt probably won’t disappear just because you now understand where it comes from. That’s fine. You don’t need to wait for the guilt to go away before you protect the anchor. You just need to do it anyway, with guilt riding shotgun.

A few small things that help:

• Say it out loud, once. “I’m taking my ten minutes” said plainly, without an apology attached, does more than you’d think. You’re not asking permission. You’re narrating a fact.
• Expect the friction, don’t negotiate with it. The first few times you protect an anchor, it’ll feel wrong. That’s not evidence you should stop. That’s just what change feels like before it becomes normal.
• Notice who it actually costs. Nine times out of ten, the thing you thought would fall apart if you took your ten minutes… didn’t. The kids survived. The house is still standing. The world moved on without you for a few minutes, and it’ll be there when you get back.

One More Thing

This is exactly the kind of thing that’s easier to work through out loud than alone in your own head arguing with your own guilt.

That’s why the next Lifeline Workshop – What to Hold Onto When Your Routine Falls Apart – is happening on Wednesday, August 12 at 12 PM ET. We’ll build out your actual anchors together, and talk through the guilt that shows up the second you try to protect them. Live, 90 minutes, with a replay included if you can’t make it.

Save Your Spot → https://kerririchardson.thrivecart.com/routine/

You don’t need your whole system back. You need three things to not slip. And permission to protect them without apologizing for it.

I wish you space and clarity,

This is part three in a short series on staying grounded this summer —-start with Why Am I So Tired? The Real Summer Energy Drain and The 3 Anchors You Need When Your Schedule Disappears if you missed them.