Take Time to Rest

Bring Your Best Game to Life - Topic 3

THE CONCEPT:  THE VALUE & PRACTICE OF REST

In our last topic we looked at mental presence and the practice of mindfulness, and how showing up as fully present can give you the ability to experience calm and ease.

As an elite athlete, you’re trained – and often naturally inclined – to go hard and move fast. During today’s topic, you’ll be given permission to press the ‘Pause’ button from time to time for the sake of achieving optimal performance and reaching your goals.

Talk to anyone who has run a marathon, and they’ll likely tell you that they trained for a long time leading up to the race. Maybe they started out running a few miles a few times a week, and worked up to 50 or so miles a week. They probably didn’t run 26.2 miles (the length of a full marathon) every day. They probably also weren’t in an all-out sprint for the length of the marathon. And the day after they completed the marathon, they probably rested.

If you look around you, all of nature has cycles of rest and renewal. The seasons around us change; trees lose their leaves so that they can re-grow them again. Similarly, our lives have seasons, though many of us have become very good at ignoring them. I have been guilty of this: treating my life as if it was perpetually Summer, and treating each day’s marathon as an all-out sprint.

It’s not sustainable.

If you’ve ever been exhausted, if you’ve ever been burnt out, if you’ve ever been a person who says, “I just can’t stop.” That’s precisely what you need to do: stop.

Zoom out and take a look at your life for a moment. Where are you moving high speed? Where are you spending the majority of your energy? Now, think about how you’re renewing your energy. Is your life in balance? Are you finding ways to rest and renew? Or are you using your energy as if there are unending reserves?

For many of us, carving out time for ourselves feels selfish, or impossible. If there’s one thing that’s going to get cut from the list, it’s taking care of ourselves. Little do we realize, that taking the time to pause and rest makes us more effective at the things we want or need to do.

TRY IT!

Click on the image below to download this topic’s worksheet to practice pressing the ‘Pause’ button and renewing your energy so that your lifestyle becomes more sustainable, and more filled with joy.

Download Worksheet 3 - Take Time to Rest