I love helping people and providing them with counsel from my business perspective. I am continuously struck by the feedback I receive from my work.
In addition to those who set aside their time to provide me with feedback, I am delighted to see that many of you are reading my blogs. There’s technology to show me who’s reading my mail and that motivates me every week to do another and another.
Finding personal space in a busy work environment is a discipline many of us have to consciously create. Especially if you grew up when the work ethic was so strong that talking to others and enjoying yourself at work meant you were wasting time.
The phrase work-life balance gets thrown around a lot these days signifying a trade-off between time spent working and time spent on other, non-related work activities.
If you were to Google work-life balance, you’ll come across a lot of ‘R’ words, like rest, recharge, relax and rejuvenate, reset, renew, recline and reboot. They all ‘relate’ to actions that ‘relieve’ work-related stress.
As we move into the summer season, many of us create space on our calendars for ‘recreation’ time. The word recreation is a noun meaning refreshment of strength and spirits after work. In other words, to ‘recreate’.
It’s important to give each part of your life the attention it needs at the appropriate time.
Having a mindset for success requires personal well-being.
This is not to suggest ignoring your work or reducing your work hours but to make space to recreate your inner state.
It reminds me of a poem called Fire by Judy Sorum Brown.
What makes the fire burn
is the space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that makes fire possible.
When we love what we do, we tend to pile on too much. In comparison to building a fire, to be productive, you need to create open spaces for your mind to breathe.
I hope you too can enjoy some summer wellness break.
