I love my job. I bound out of bed every morning and often times find that I’ve been at my desk for several hours tinkering with content or presentations or a blog or an article or a book and look up to find that I have neither eaten nor participated in any kind of personal hygiene.
Sorry about that visual.
The hard part for anyone who shares my passion for what they do isn’t to overcome challenges or find new customers or work with existing ones. The hard part is also a necessary part: Taking a break.
I’m not talking about a vacation. I’m talking about hitting the reset button during a quiet stretch of time, such as these lazy summer days in August. My September/October travel schedule is quite full. I will either be preparing for a trip, on a trip, or recovering from a trip for much of that 60-day period. Now is the time for a little escape.
It sounds so easy: Take a full or half day off. Jump on the motorcycle and go down to the Vineyard. Check out that new Tom Cruise flick in the middle of a hot afternoon. Work out in the garden. But in reality, it’s torture!
When you love what you do, it’s never work. But even if you don’t, jumping off the merry-go-round for a brief time can be difficult. There are things to do and you’ve got momentum going and there is the pressure of making your numbers for the month. Thousands of reasons exist why you shouldn’t slip away, but slip away you must.
What would it mean to one of your children for the two of you to have lunch together? No one else. How special would that make him/her feel? Trust me, my three daughters will tell you that they have fond memories of solo time with their dad. While it might be hard now, you will be very glad later in life.
Or how about an afternoon of golf with your spouse? Or maybe even just you and a good book in a hammock with a glass of lemonade. The point is, even if you haven’t earned it (read: if you haven’t reached your sales goal for the month), you need it. It will help.
If it makes you feel better, write down how many hours you plan to take off six months from now, in the cold month of February, and make those hours up.
You’ve got three weeks left between now and the week that includes the Labor Day holiday. That’s 15 days, 30 half days. Pick one, shut off your phone, disappear, and go make a memory.
