Knowing When To Take a Break – Giving Yourself Permission
Do you ever have one of those days where your get up and go just gets up and goes? Of course you do, your only human. Sometimes you should actually just go with it. The key however is to learn to recognise when. Knowing when to take a break is actually a strength. This isn’t a feeling you should always yield to but there are definitely times when a little RnR is called for.
Like with everything, this feeling of can’t be bothered can be habit forming. That’s why it’s important to be able tell the difference between the slump we all experience at times and a possible approaching burnout. For the self employed, driven entrepreneur it’s often a sign that your creative juices are running low. In this case you do yourself no favours by forcing some kind of half-hearted activity.
I certainly seem to work best in bursts. I’ll have periods of time where I’m firing on all four and get loads done. Other times it does take a strong effort of will to get started on my day especially when the sun is shining and I’m staring at a long to do list.
Knowing when to take a break and when not to
The strange thing is that often these aren’t difficult tasks. They can be tedious at times and the old enemy – procrastination just loves that. It can’t beat self discipline though so if you can recognise procrastination as the problem the only solution is to just do it. It never takes as long as you think it will. When procrastination gets very difficult to overcome however, thats my way of knowing when to take a break.
When you are building a business – especially a virtual business there is a lot to do. There is a huge amount to learn and apply and becoming overwhelmed is a definite risk. It goes with the territory and sometimes you just need to get your priorities straight. For me these are happiness, health and the acceptance that sometimes things don’t happen quite as quickly as you would like.
In the online industry we rely on technology, which by its very nature sometimes lets us down. Accepting that this is largely out of our control makes life a bit easier. In a recent blog I talked about the Aweber problems I experienced this week. Without that system there isn’t a lot I can do. It turned out OK as it happens and was far less of a set back that it seemed at first.
Knowing when to take a break – “Tank empty” is no place to be coming from
When creativity is the life blood of your business: Writing emails, blogs and advertising copy, the overwhelmed, tank empty feeling is no place to be coming from. It’s better to step back – not for too long of course but long enough to feel the juices start to flow again. It’s all part of learning and knowing when to take a break. In this game it’s all too easy to chain yourself to the laptop screen and it really shouldn’t be that way.
Everyone works in a different way. If you, like me are more suited to bursts of creativity than to constant activity then bear that in mind. After all if your bursts of activity mean that you have good material out there generating leads to a great sales funnel, it’s “job done”.
You can tend to forget that this is the appeal of running an online business. The objective is to have more time freedom, to work in a different way that plays to your strengths. This isn’t a luxury you can indulge in a traditional job. With those you have to physically present at times that might not actually suit you as a person. You get conditioned – un-conditioning yourself from that mindset isn’t easy.
Learn to recognise the signs. If you are having to force yourself to get started for a few days you are not going to be producing good work. Walk away. You’ll know when to get back to it and you’ll be better for it in the long run. Knowing when to take a break is a skill shared by all successful entrepreneurs.