High Performance Leaders Need Rest and Play
It’s’ spring!
With the change of season, it’s a great time to reflect on how you might want to adjust using your time and energy.
How many of us have forgotten how to REST? How many of us have forgotten how to PLAY?
I am guilty of not being aware of play or creating the rest I needed. I spent YEARS breathing way too fast, racing from task to task and event to event.I somehow believed that my worth was attached to what was accomplished. Leaving something undone was actually painful.
Rest and play are not just important, they are critical.
Researcher Stuart Brown says that the opposite of play isn’t actually work, it’s depression. Sadly, I know this all too well too. What happens to us when we don’t rest and play? Creativity suffers. Relationships suffer. Effectiveness suffers. Clarity and purpose suffer. Decision making ability suffers. Our overall capacity for resilience suffers.
Can you relate?
There is one simple metaphor that helps me choose when REST and PLAY are important: an elastic band. When we work so hard, give and parent, the elastic band is stretched with each new effort. Some elastics have far more “give” and can stretch great distances, much like each person’s ability to work. Be careful to not let pride and ego take over here…. elastics have a breaking point. So do we.
It’s impossible to know when an elastic has reached it’s breaking point. There are clues, but sometimes they surprise us.
What clues are in your life? Are you paying attention to the clues? Have you already learned this lesson, but need to learn it again?
Better than stretching an elastic to breaking point, is a the use of an elastic to stretch and release. Work and rest. Play.
Referring back to the body of research by Dr. Stuart Brown, play is time spent without purpose; time spent when we can lose track of time and self consciousness.For me, that usually involves being in nature or in water…. and that is where I find hope, rest, creativity and a tonne of joy.
Where do you feel like you lose track of time and self consciousness?
That’s your zone.
Find it and make sure you refuel. The purpose of an elastic is to stretch. For that it must contract. Work can be immensely satisfying. For that we must find rest. We cannot give something that we don’t have.
What do you find restful? Where do you lose track of time?
What resources do you have to employ a period of rest?
Are your holidays restful and playful for you or are they a different form of work?
Do you have any practices in place that allow you to shut off your phone?
Give yourself what you need if you’re feeling stretched and ask yourself what is important. Get curious. Then breathe deep and make some choices.
There may be hard choices at first. As you get better at playing and resting, you’ll become better at it. You’ll thank yourself.