If you’re needing a break, you’re not behind. You’re actually ahead of everyone still grinding themselves into diminishing returns.
In a 24-hour cycle world, the idea of stepping away from the action seems detrimental. What if we miss something? But in the chase for being ON all the time, we dilute our creativity, productivity, and overall effectiveness.
Doing something just to be doing something is rarely the most efficient way to operate. Sometimes the best thing we can do for any project, deadline, or promotion is just stop.
When Hustle Backfires
Large events and busy periods reveal how humans behave under stress. The hustle and bustle of making things successful for whatever entity you’re representing can be counterproductive.
When you burn the candle at both ends, you’re denying yourself the natural energies available to you. The energies that help things flow smoothly.
A little pre-paving is more effective than running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Some imaginative thinking about how successful things would be if everything went perfectly. When you don’t allow yourself time to rest, recharge, and refocus your innate energy, you have to force things to work.
And forced things rarely work well.
The Power of the Pause
By taking a 15-minute power nap, closing your eyes, and focusing on what it would look like for everything to go right, you realign yourself with the natural energies that make things easy.
It’s easy to forget to take time for yourself when everyone is racing from place to place, trying to fit as much as possible into a small window. The frenzy sucks you in. If you’re not careful, you accept it and lose control over your own circumstances.
The pause isn’t passive. It’s strategic.
What Happens When I Skip My Break
On a physical level, daily meditation usually leaves my body feeling healthy and optimized. On days where I take even 10 minutes for myself to close my eyes and imagine things working out perfectly, I find that my body needs very few external supports to balance itself.
But when I neglect to take time for myself, my body requires massive amounts of support just to function.
On an emotional and creative level, the longer I go without giving myself a mental break, the more everything seems stressful. The less fun I end up naturally having.
It’s been amazing how just taking a 15-minute break not only reenergizes me, but draws better contacts and connections my way.
Stress Attracts Stress
When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I tend to meet people I have no interest in pursuing a conversation with. But after a little me-time, I end up meeting people I feel lucky to have connected with.
I have to conclude that taking time for myself each day perpetuates better connections and ultimately makes it easier to have fun in a meaningful way.
Your state determines your circumstances. Not the other way around.
Being vs. Doing
The next time you’re feeling stressed, allow yourself to take a break. Close your eyes. Crawl up for a power nap. At the very least, count to 10 and breathe.
Things are ready to line up in a way that makes it all seem easy. You just have to accept that many times doing is not as important as being.
Imagine the events you want to participate in. Focus on them with pleasant ease before you begin each day, or whenever you can squeeze a little imagination time in.
Be the change you want to see. Then watch it occur.
This is shadow work in action.
If you’re ready to process what’s been running your life, explore the Shadow Work practices.