In the last couple of consultations with clients, maybe because many folk are scrambling to make things happen as COVID has impacted their businesses, I have found an increasing number of people that are literally burnt-out or fast approaching burn-out!
Media is suggesting that one of the greatest impacts of COVID beyond physical health has been mental health. Emerging data around domestic abuse and suicide is quite disturbing to be honest and I’d be lying if I claimed to have not had a brush with fairly significant depression myself, during this time!!
It has been a very difficult in all honesty!
So what are the lessons learned (beyond physical and medical!)? Could it be that “All Work and No play” actually make Jack a SICK person – not just dull, as the saying goes!
I feel it is really necessary, in the face of business pressures, or even BECAUSE of business pressures to be encouraging people to deliberately plan and take some time out for themselves to recover and regain their strength both mentally, physically and spiritually (whatever that means for you!) in the midst of all the pressures!
There’s a saying that asks “What profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” and may I add if he loses his physical, mental and spiritual balance?
“Take time to rest” is my current mantra…BUT…
I do not believe that rest is simply the absence of “busy-ness” or doing nothing (although that is a part of it, I guess!). Rest is definitely doing something that replaces, rejuvenates, refreshes, renovates and recharges your batteries, to enable you to go another mile or to get back into the rat race feeling a little better than a rat possibly!
I’d advocate deliberately booking out time for rest activities for your body, mind and soul! Book them out, go and do them and go and enjoy them!
Get to the gym, take a vacation, plan daily time with the wife and kids, get to your “happy place” for a short period everyday if possible…but do it! Find out what feeds your soul and go and do that as often as you can – daily if possible!
I firmly believe that you’ll return to work with an ability to do way more than if you just kept going and kept going and kept going!
Finally, don’t WORK for REST…REST for WORK!
Go for it
