I want to take some time today to talk about the power of taking breaks. I’ve reached a new level of understanding when it comes to taking breaks and it has changed my life and my level of productivity completely.
If you’re like me, life has gotten so intense lately. I have been going back-to-back-to-back-to-back, call to call to call to call, event to-event to event and it has been exhausting.
The thing is, I was allowing that to happen. I asked myself, “Why am I allowing myself to continue in this manner?” I kept trying to say, “Because I had to. There were just so many meetings!”
Let’s be honest. We all have agency.
We can say no.
After being honest with myself and thinking about why I was allowing this to happen I found that I had two main reasons.
However, it was a false sense of productivity. Sure, I was doing something, but it wasn’t always something that needed to be done to propel myself forward.
In today’s business world everyone is meeting too damn much. Every time we talk about a part of business it doesn’t need to always be done in a meeting, let alone on zoom. Having meetings brings on a sense of importance and productivity but it is beneficial?
When you are looking at all the stuff you are doing, and you feel like you need to keep doing all those things ask yourself, “What am I getting out of being this busy?”
If you decide you do not want to keep being this busy, but you can’t seem to stop, then there is a part of you that is getting something out of it.
For me, I hit exhaustion. I hit deep, deep exhaustion because I was just on the go all the time. There would be a point almost every day where I would collapse. I would have all these meetings back-to-back and at the end of the day, I would collapse. It would take hours for me to resuscitate. I was so tired that I was starting to find it hard to do even the basic things in life like taking care of my household. I just couldn’t find enough energy to get it done.
Even though I was working so hard I was losing productivity in my life overall.
When I shifted and said, “No more!”, I built breaks into my schedule between my meetings and calls, and that allowed me the space and time to do simple things like take a break or eat.
I needed big chunks of time like 30 minutes to an hour. Five to ten minutes just wasn’t going to cut it.
After doing this I noticed a night and day difference in my life.
I was able to reset.
I was able to relax and release the anxiety brought on by the previous call or meeting.
I was able to do some self-care, like preparing a healthy meal for myself and taking the time to enjoy eating it.
Being able to do these things felt so good and brought a revived energy back into the next call or meeting on my schedule. After I implemented these breaks, I was able to go longer and longer into the day. There was no longer a collapse that I needed to resuscitate from. I was able to go and do some other things, whether it be work-related or home related. I was able to tackle things on that list of things that never seem to get done. Knocking things off that list feels amazing! And don’t think that because I’m able to work later and get more things done that that means I’m going to bed later because I’m not. I’m still able to accomplish all of this and go to bed at a decent time.
Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash
My invitation to you is that no matter how many kids you have, no matter how much work you have, or how many other priorities you have, there is room somewhere in there for you. There is room for you to take breaks. There is room for you to do what you need to do to take care of yourself.
Guess what? Life does get easier if you let it. If you take the time to take breaks for yourself, daily life will feel easier and get better.
If you want help learning how to take time to breathe and navigating what breaks might look like for you, reach out to me and join The Her Evolution. We talk about powerful things like how you can evolve and move to the next level of your life. I invite you to join us!
Komentarze