Rest Hard and Work Hard - Dare to be Brilliant

It takes real courage to be brilliant, consistently giving your best, so that you can live the best life possible and create a future where you live a life of meaning and satisfaction. I am not talking about waking up every day, where you strive to be THE BEST and compete with everyone round you, I am talking about waking up every day feeling inspired to be the best version of yourself possible, where you consistently use all your skills, talents and abilities to their optimal level. A satisfying place where you commit to live your full potential and give no more and no less than your best, every day.

In a world without stress and daily challenge it would indeed be possible to wake up every day and work at your maximum all day every day. As you know that is not possible to do, if you tried to work at 100 % all the time, you would eventually burn out and your performance would decline to a point of overwhelm. Does that sound familiar? Are you in a similar place right now, where you are working yourself to the bone, yet you are accomplishing very little.
The reason for your lack of progress is not due to your unwillingness to give your best every day, it is your unwillingness to listen to the rhythms of your body. We operate best in cycles of intense activity, where we allow ourselves frequent periods for rest and recovery. If you break this cycle and attempt to work at high intensity without allowing time to rest and recover, your performance will just keep declining to a point of burn-out and overwhelm.

Expecting your body to continue working at maximum, without frequent breaks to recover during the day, is like expecting a bodybuilder to train without rest breaks between sets. If a body builder worked without any rest between sets and just did all five sets in one massive push, they would injure themselves and break their body down, instead of building it up. The rest and recovery time between sets is as important as the actual weight lifting exercise itself. Our bodies are the same, if we just push through our day, working at our maximum all day, without time to recover, we are breaking our bodies down and pushing ourselves to a point of overwhelm. You will achieve far more and be a lot more productive if you introduce regular rest periods throughout your day.

Action Idea: Break your day up into 90 minute segments. During each 90 minute segment have one or two major priorities that you will focus all your energy on during that period. Give 100 % of your focus and energy to complete each task, during that time. The secret to make this work and to deliver the maximum from each 90 minute segment is to then rest for 10 minutes after each segment, where you walk away from your desk, breathe deeply and relax. This is not an easy skill to learn, as we allow our minds to constantly overflow with issues and concerns and our brains are filled with all the tasks we need to get done.

Since I began practicing this new daily routine and have made it a part of my new success habit set, I rest more during the day, feel no overwhelm and achieve far more each day. When we follow the natural cycles or rhythms of the universe and we infuse our day with periods of activity and rest, we are able to improve our performance and maximise our productivity.

Any athlete knows that you need whole days off from training, to allow your body time to recover and rejuvenate. If any athlete were to keep training week in and week out, without days off in-between to recover, they would eventually break down and burn out. As business professionals we are no different, we need time off every week to recover. This is time where you switch off from work and all responsibilities related to work for a period of 24 hours. This rest day, where you do not do work related activities or even think about work, begins at mid-day and runs to mid-day the next day. This is crucial recovery time where you recharge your batteries. You will be astounded at how rejuvenated you feel after a rest day and how productive you are the day after a true rest day, where you switched off from work completely.

Professional athletes also train in seasons; they take time off after each intense season to rest and recover. This is usually a rest period of one or two weeks, where they give their bodies time to rejuvenate. When we as business professionals follow a similar pattern, where we allow our bodies time to recover after every period of activity, we are able to maximise our productivity throughout the year.

I break my year up into 90 day periods, during each of these 90 day segments; I have one or two priorities or goals that I focus all my energy on achieving. I use the principals described above, where I work in 90 minute segments, with regular rest during the day, I rest for a minimum of 24 hours each week and after each 90 segment I take a whole week off to recover and explore the next 90 days. This routine has seen me accelerate my performance over the past few years, to a point where, even I am astounded. These are really easy routines to learn and the results they deliver are incredible, why not give this system a try?

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