Taking Time Off

Posted by Jaclyn Beckerman on March 30, 2010

I notice that people always seem to have some serious crazy resistance to normal well being practices related to their businesses – consistently taking vacation time off, working regular business hours (it doesn’t really matter whether they’re 9-5 or 1-9 – but regular), not working on weekends and so on and so forth.

I’ve always thought I’ve been really good about this myself.  I don’t take clients or prospects on weekends, I don’t schedule calls outside of 9:30a-6:30p and I will definitely take a few vacations a year (even if that means a staycation like it is this week).  Yet I really was just choosing not to count the email I answered here, the appointment I took the time to schedule there, the phone call I answered or returned outside my regular hours.  Even worse, I’ve known it’s important for me to take a day off for well being after using all my energy coaching for an entire weekend (leading the coach training program) and have still kept a regularly scheduled client on my Monday roster, or allowed myself to do *just one* consultation and answer emails.  I am committing to give that up and honor my time off as what it is, time to re-fuel and take care of myself.

The fact is, not holding your time off as sacred impedes on you building a strong and powerful foundation for which to operate on top of.

Most people cannot bring themselves to give their body, mind and spirit time to rest, play and rejuvenate for fear of losing business or upsetting a client or some other plausible excuse.

Yet then you’re really just trying to support your clients or business from a place of depletion.  Where your needs are not met, you’re not taken care of and you’re operating on top of a foundation filled with gaping holes and perhaps some duct tape trying to hold it all together.  Taking care of your well being builds a strong foundation for which to go generate possibility and success.  Without it, you’re trying to make a cross country journey running on fumes.

So stop lying to yourself saying you have to work more in order to build your business.  If your business is suffering it’s because you’re suffering.  And if it’s doing alright with with you overworking and overexerting yourself, consider it could be doing fantastic if you were operating as the powerhouse you could be during the specific times you designate to be working.

Start with taking back your weekends.  Then regular working hours. You’re like a rechargeable battery that you’ve currently only been giving a few minutes to recharge every times it dies, you’re then never operating at full power.  Start committing to recharging fully and just watch the difference it makes in your business.

This might speak more to those who have their own businesses than it will to those who work 9-5 in an office or at least don’t work on commissions but consider that no matter what your working situation is, there’s still a desperate need for you to be taking care of your well being consistently and reliably.  What difference do you see it could make in your life?

30Mar