How do you stop?

After a busy two weeks of holidays, children, family staying, fun and feasting I’m having a very s l o w day. I’ve built this in - designed it as a recuperation day before school and work patterns take over once again.

This might seem simple and insignificant, but I can tell you it’s taken a lot to get to this point - a point where I can give myself permission to put my feet up a bit, enjoy pootling at will and not have a humungous guilt trip at deliberately not achieving something today.

When our habits are created by the demands of life we put ourself at the bottom of the pile. I know a lot of people are going to resonate with this - my clients often do. Work, housework, kids, partners, day to day tasks - ‘life admin’ - it’s never ending. But what’s it all for? Too often we loose sight of the end point and burn out in the process.

They annoying thing is - we KNOW our mental health is important, we KNOW we deserve a little bit of feet up time, and we also usually KNOW that we’ll burn out if we don’t build in time to stop. So why don’t we action it?!

Well, we can blame culture, we can blame gender roles, we can blame others, but really it’s down to us.

It’s been a challenge to decide and action a ‘stoppage day’ today, but even more of a challenge to set and maintain boundaries with others and to reframe their expectations. Several times I’ve had to stop and rethink my answer to something or actually let someone down because I’m putting my own needs first. That was a tough one - but I’m not going to allow my actions to be driven by guilt today.

Phew.

How are you building in down time? What conversations do you have in your own head? I’m curious to know. Does this resonate with you? Get in touch to explore how best your can build in your down time.

#mindset

#personalbrilliance

#rest

#burnout