At the beginning of December, I took a group of senior leaders from one of our client firms on a three-day retreat at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. On the last day, we went for a hike through the scenic Lamington National Park rainforest, as you can imagine surrounded by the sounds of the bush and birds. Spectacular views awaited as we emerged from the forest. Everyone commented on the value and clarity they gained from venturing beyond the walls of their busy lives, breathing the fresh air, and doing some deeper thinking.
As the Christmas break draws near and this decade comes to a close, it’s a good time to consider doing the same for yourself. Are you taking the time you need to rest and recuperate?
We live in a society that is always pushing to do more, to stay constantly in motion, to become more efficient and, in the process, deny your human needs for connection and conversation, for rest and relationships. Do you evaluate your worth based on how ‘in-demand’ you are or even how many hours you work? We prize ‘busy’ above everything else and boast about how many hours we put in. It’s not really a race you want to win.
Busyness robs you of your precious time. Time to think, to explore, to play, to nurture yourself and your relationships.
As 2019 fades I notice a common thread that runs through our clients’ experiences this past year. The senior leaders of this world are facing a kind of pressure that I have not seen in the past 5-10 years of doing this work. The pace that people are working at is relentless. There is no such thing as a static target state, just an insatiable demand for more.
And this pressure means you are rarely finding the time to rebalance yourself. You may be leaving aside the things that matter most to your wellbeing – time with your family and friends. Have you thought about your diet, your exercise routines, and the routines you need to build in to create a long term, sustainable life?
The roots of busyness run deep and present a direct challenge to time, one of your most precious commodities. At some point, you need to decide: do you want to be busy, or do you want to make an impact? Because the pace you are operating at requires you to rest in order to survive and to be there when it matters.
Escaping your ‘busy’ day to day life every now and then matters. For this reason, the end of the year is a time for reflection, recuperation and most essentially, resetting. As you take your first curious steps into 2020, please ensure you take care of yourself.
