Today I want to talk about one of the things on my to do list that is the hardest for me to do, and the one that most often gets set aside until the next day – or later.
Rest.
Now I know many of you might be double-taking at that. Rest? Like, doesn’t that happen every night?
Well yes and no. We’re two weeks into April. For the first week of this month, I got out and walked/ran six miles.
Every day.
You’d think that would be a good thing, but here’s the rub: My knees and ankles started paying the price around day four. Part of that was because the County regraded the roads out here and what had once been a stable surface, turned into something that I had to pay much more attention to.
And I never gave myself the time to recover.
Sure, I was mostly recovered 24 hours later and the endorphins that get released when you start moving with intent, killed any low-grade pain left over. And so it went – every day…until about 45 minutes after I got back. Showered and settling in for the night, getting up for anything told me in no uncertain terms that I’d overdone it.
Now I’m using this example as it’s a much more visceral experience than, say working non-stop for a week, never giving myself the chance to refill the creative well. But the results are kind of the same.
There’s a lot of cultural baggage around The Hustle. You gotta do it every day – no exceptions – or you just don’t want it bad enough. It’s a multi-billion dollar a year industry that tries to convince you to grind it out to the exception of Everything. It wants to turn you into a machine. Worse, a machine with no maintenance cycles.
I disagree with that. Vehemently. It is part of your job to Rest, and if you’re not getting the rest you need, you need to make some changes. It’s not laziness, it’s not a lack of drive, and it’s not that you don’t want it.
What it is, is an acknowledgement that you – the crucial part – need the time to recover. So don’t treat it like it’s extra (optional or otherwise). Rest is an important part of the process and it needs to be embraced.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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