Gifts to Give Yourself
Five gifts that change how you show up and lead
We’re deep in the season of gift-giving. Lists are being made, packages wrapped, thoughtful gestures planned for everyone we care about. But here’s the question I keep returning to:
What about the gifts we rarely give ourselves?
Not the bubble bath or face mask kind (though those have their place), but the deeper investments. The ones that change how we show up, lead, and handle the inevitable challenges of work and life.
As the year winds down, here are five gifts worth giving yourself. Meaningful, entirely within reach, and powerful enough to carry with you long after December ends.
Grace
The gift of being human.
This one comes first because it’s foundational to everything else.
The gift of grace is treating yourself the way you’d treat a good friend. When you make a mistake, miss a deadline, or fall short of your own expectations - what do you say to yourself? If it’s anything harsher than what you’d say to someone you care about, that’s your signal.
We are ruthlessly hard on ourselves in ways we’d never be with others. We replay our missteps, catalog our failures, hold ourselves to impossible standards. And for what? It doesn’t make us better leaders or better people. It just makes us exhausted.
Grace is the practice of acknowledging you’re human. That you’re doing your best with the information, energy, and capacity you have in any given moment. That perfection isn’t the goal. Growth is.
I catch myself all the time with the harsh self-talk. “OMG how did you let that happen?” or “What were you thinking?” or my personal favorite at 2am: “Who am I to think I could do this?”. And then there’s replaying conversations, rehashing what I said (or didn’t say) always thinking of the perfect response hours too late.
I’m learning to catch that voice and edit it in real time, like it’s running across a teleprompter in my head. What would I say to a friend in this situation? How would I talk to someone I care about who just made the same mistake? That’s the edit. That’s grace.
It’s not natural yet. But it’s the practice.
What would change if you gave yourself the same compassion you readily extend to others?
Connection
The gift of people who lift you up.
Not networking. Not obligation-based coffee chats that drain you. I’m talking about intentionally finding and nurturing connections that genuinely energize you.
The people who inspire you, challenge your thinking, make you laugh, remind you why you do this work in the first place. The conversations that leave you feeling more alive, not depleted.
Too often, we treat connection as transactional - something we “should” do for our careers. But the most valuable relationships aren’t built on what someone can do for you. They’re built on mutual respect, shared values, genuine curiosity about each other’s journeys.
Here’s what I’ve learned to look for: people who make me feel like the best version of myself. People in whose presence I’m sharper, kinder, more creative, more myself. The ones where I leave the conversation liking who I was in it.
Surround yourself with people you genuinely admire for how they show up in the world. People whose values align with yours, who inspire you to think bigger, who challenge you in ways that feel amplifying rather than diminishing.
This is why I talk so much about building a “Personal Board of Directors”, not a collection of prestigious names and titles, but people who truly know you and are invested in your growth. People you can learn from. People you can be real with about the hard stuff, not just the highlight reel.
The gift here is being intentional. Who fills your cup? Who do you leave feeling energized after spending time with them? How can you make more space for those connections and less for the ones that feel like obligations?
Connection isn’t a luxury. It’s essential fuel.
Belief
The gift of believing in yourself. Especially when no one else does.
This one’s hard to write about without sounding like a motivational poster, but stay with me. Because there will be moments in your career when you’re the only one who can see what you’re capable of. When you’re reaching for something that looks too big, too risky, too much of a stretch. When the external signals aren’t encouraging.
Those are the moments that define your trajectory.
Believing in yourself isn’t about false confidence or ignoring real feedback. It’s about knowing - deeply knowing - that you can figure things out. That you’ve done hard things before. That being uncomfortable is part of growth, not evidence you’re in the wrong place.
I’ve made big career pivots that were risky. Leaving the corporate world without knowing exactly how or when I’d return. Starting a non-profit. Going back to corporate and believing I could build something meaningful from scratch. And most recently, leaving again to build my own business.
Every single time, there were voices - well-meaning voices - telling me why it wasn’t the right move. Too risky. Too uncertain. Why would I leave something secure? But I knew what I needed, even when I couldn’t fully articulate it yet. I believed the path would reveal itself if I just took the first step.
And it did. Every time.
You’ve got this. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when it’s messy and uncertain. You can do hard things.
Give yourself the gift of believing that.
Time
The gift of space to slow down and breathe.
Time that’s unstructured. Time to breathe, think, and just be. Time that isn’t optimized or productive or in service to anyone else’s agenda.
I know, I know. Where exactly is this magical time supposed to come from when you’re already maxed out?
That’s the real gift. Giving yourself permission to strategically drop something, delegate something, or simply say no to create that space. Not everything on your plate is as essential as it feels in the moment.
What could you stop doing? What could someone else do? What are you holding onto because you’ve always done it, not because it actually matters?
One of my favorite ways to gift myself time is protecting time for reading. Whether it’s a leadership book that stretches my thinking or fiction that lets me completely escape, reading is time that’s intentionally mine. It’s both an investment in myself and a break from the relentless pace of everything else.
For me it’s reading, but the real practice is carving out time that’s yours. Time where you’re not “on” for anyone else. Time to let your brain wander, make unexpected connections, or simply rest.
You need this time. Not as a reward for getting everything else done, but as a non-negotiable part of how you sustain yourself.
Coaching
The gift of not figuring it out alone.
This may be the most surprising gift. And one of the most transformative.
The gift of coaching isn’t just about working with someone like me (though I’d love to work with you). It’s about the gift of investing in yourself. Of taking your own development as seriously as you take developing your team.
Coaching is the space where you can:
Get clarity on what you actually want, not what you think you should want
Explore new ways to approach problems that keep showing up
Build self-awareness about your patterns, strengths, and blind spots
Work through the messy middle of a career transition or leadership challenge
Give yourself permission to want more, dream bigger, or simply figure out what’s next
Here’s what I know: coaching amplifies all the other gifts. It helps you practice grace with yourself. Identify which connections matter most. Strengthen your belief in your own capabilities. Protect your time for what actually matters.
The people who invest in themselves this way show up differently. Clearer on their boundaries, more confident in their decisions, better equipped to navigate the inevitable uncertainty of leadership.
It’s not a luxury. It’s leverage.
These aren’t one-time gifts you check off a list. They’re ongoing practices. Commitments to yourself that compound over time.
As this year winds down, I’m thinking about my own gifts to myself. Grace for the messy parts of building my business. Time to think without an agenda. Belief that the path I’m carving is exactly right, even when it feels uncertain or unfinished.
What gift do you most need to give yourself?
I’m Tracy Stone, a leadership coach who helps women leaders invest in themselves - through coaching, through building intentional connections, through creating space to figure out what they actually want. If you’re ready to stop carrying everything alone and start building what matters most to you, I’d love to support you.
Until then, may your December include gifts to yourself. Keep carving your path - one intentional gift at a time.
📌 PS - One more gift you can give: If this post resonated with you, would you share it with someone who needs this reminder?
Forward it to a colleague, restack it on Substack Notes, or share it on LinkedIn. Spreading the word helps me keep writing content that supports leaders carving their own paths.
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Impressive, Tracy! I especially love what you say about the gift of coaching (we used to call this mentoring - a very big deal to me during my career years and even into retirement). Love your thought that "it's not luxury, it's leverage."
I love this Tracy! I need to give some grace to myself; highly agree coaching is transformative!!