FridayFocus: #1 REST

We have one of those fancy beds that allow you to adjust the comfort level to suit your preferences. I like it a lot. Okay, I love it. What I love about it is that after a long day of supporting organizations and leaders, taking and making calls, and flying from meeting to meeting, that bed offers me a chance to dial my comfort level and fall into some of the most excellent REM sleep I've ever had. The app for the bed makes sure I have the data to back up this claim. I'm getting some good sleep, friends - but sleep isn't rest. Hear me out: sleep is necessary to recharge the brain and body and restore our batteries for the next gauntlet of greatness the tomorrows we're blessed with bring.

Rest is pausing from the gauntlet itself and allowing your very being a break from the tension associated with the grind of the day-to-day. Call it a sabbath or a mind vacation - pausing from building your thing can be good for you, the people around you, and the goals you're working to achieve. This kind of rest allows us to enjoy the fruits of our labors, such as an actual vacation. My wife and I recently took a weekend away to Las Vegas, where we went to a show and ate some great food. We spent some time reflecting on our relationship and what we need to stay friendly while building our businesses. Well worth it - those seats at the Adele concert weren't too bad either.

Making time away from the grind also provides meaningful perspective and creative streaks for your work. I believe that for many of us, there's not a lot of space to fully "turn it off," and in the course of meaningful time away from the grind, we have a chance to perceive the world around us and allow ourselves to be influenced and inspired but what we take in. Returning to our workspaces, we're full of new ideas, energy, and perspectives on achieving our goals. I want these FridayFocus installments to be of value to you, so I'll share some ways I believe you can implement each FridayFocus in real life. Here goes:

Plan It:

I’m grateful to my wife, Merissa,  who is also an entrepreneur and far more creative than I am. She also creates bucket lists of artists and destinations for us to visit and experience. While I’ve never heard more than two Adele songs and struggled to follow along (it was a great show - Celine Dion was there, too), I benefited from focused time with my wife and the benefits of planning for our time away. Research shows we get as many restorative benefits from planning a trip as we do from going on it. Planning doesn’t have to be hard; there are many sites with trip packages and fabulous destinations for you to check out. It doesn’t have to be far - planning a staycation where your primary goal is to be away from the hustle and grind and recharge works just as well, so long as you aren’t tempted to hop online and start working. Making time to reach the Consider This…blog is acceptable.

Follow Through:

I purchased great seats at an amazing hotel in Hawaii. From what I hear, it was a great time of year. We never went. It would be one of our first trips over the ocean, and since I’ve never been to Hawaii, it would be full of experiences for both of us. We didn’t go because “we had too much stuff going on at home.” Here’s what I know now: you will ALWAYS have too much stuff going on at home - and that, friends, is why you leave home and go to Hawaii - or wherever you want to go, but once you make your plan, you owe it to yourself and the hygiene of rest to follow through. Whether Holland or Hawaii or the B&B a town over - go! Whatever awaits you will still be there when you return, so get going.

Journal:

The rest I’m talking about here isn’t escapism; it's hygiene for our creativity, organization, and well-being. My hunch is that once you put down the corner of the earth you carry on your shoulders day after day ideas, reminders, and things’ll flood you that you didn’t have brain and heart space to hold before your rest work. The journal is there to help you in a couple of ways: (1) it keeps you from hoping your laptop in the moment as it thwarts the idea that if you don’t act on what you’ve been reminded of now, it will gone forever, (2) it allows you to capture all of those new thoughts and ideas without the risk of having to remember once you get back to the grind.

Reflect and Implement:

Once you return to the grind, consult your journal, spend some whiteboard time with your team or trusted colleague, and see what you can implement based on your new ideas. Reflect on what you’ve learned about yourself, your business, and the motivation for why you do what you do. What do you want to maintain from your rest? What do you want to shift based on your creative idea? You make the rules, Boss!

I pray you've gained something helpful from this installment of FridayFocus. Do you have any insights? Share your rest routine in the comments below.

Rest well & Happy Friday!

#FridayFocus

#SelfCare