You’ve been pushing hard the last few months working towards your big 2019 goals – now that summer is in full swing are you taking some time out or are you worried about taking time away in case you fall behind?
Now I’m sure that many reading this don’t need to be told to take a holiday, but how many of you take that holiday and then struggle to actually switch off from your property business?
It’s all too easy for us to fall into the mode of trying to ‘outwork’ the next guy or gal and keep pushing through with grit and a string of late nights at the desk. This is OK at times but the longer term result is willpower depletion, motivation depletion and reduction in overall effectiveness.
This is where summer holidays can really come to the rescue.
[As a quick bit of back context it’s important to understand (I’m sure many of you do) that our mental energy and willpower is a like a tank of finite resource that gradually depletes over the course of the day/week/month.
Our ability to solve problems is directly related to our mental energy. So if our mental energy and willpower is depleted, you can guess what happens to our problem solving ability! Specifically, our ability and strength in these 4 key areas dramatically reduces:
-thought control -i.e. your ability to avoid rabbit holes, bright shiny objects
-emotional control – i.e. your ability to control your mood and choose positive thinking
-impulse control- i.e. your ability to resist temptations
-performance control – i.e. your ability to engage in focused problem solving, perseverance]
So now you know a bit more of the neuroscience behind what’s going on with the grey matter when we push hard on the work front, what can be done about it on holiday?
Here’s the ONE-TWO punch suggestion I got from my business psychologist mentor and have been using for several summers:
Punch #1: Come up with bold ideas over the summer – this might be ideas to do with how you find that first JV partner, how to double your SA portfolio in the next 6 months, or introduce a new revenue stream idea. Here’s some ideas to fuel the creative and strategic thinking that you struggle to do when your head is in the ‘weeds’ of the day to day business:
- Read (holidays are a great time to give yourself permission to read for way longer than usual, so use the time to fill your head with the right “ingredients”)
- Have conversations with interesting people (you never know who you’ll meet through travel, events, dinners, sport, picnics etc so look for opportunities to tap into smart people, be open to alternative expertise outside of your industry, you may not have to look any further than a family member at a BBQ!)
- Be open to tangential connections (mull things over, give yourself permission to think creatively and laterally- new holiday environments are great for helping with this)
- PLAY! (literally, feed your mind the problem, go have fun being where you are and fully engaged in the activity (I find tennis and snowboarding are great for this, and in the summer water sports are great too:)) then leave it alone for your subconscious to get to work on coming up with some solutions.)
Punch #2: How to replenish your energy tank and build back up the discipline muscle:
- Sleep (holiday is the perfect time to let your body wake up naturally in the morning)
- Get your diet right (yes enjoy your food and drink but use the luxury of time during the holidays to choose and prepare healthy meals/snacks that don’t peak and trough your blood sugar like processed foods and refined sugars)
- Don’t make big decisions (i.e. put on hold big decision making that may stress you out until you have replenished the tank)
- Spend time on “Implementation Intentions” (if/then planning – these are v powerful but a whole post in themselves, if curious learn more here http://99u.com/articles/7248/how-to-use-if-then-planning-to-achieve-any-goal or here http://www.developgoodhabits.com/if-then-plan/ )
- Transmute R&R into motivation (if you truly let yourself indulge in some downtime, you’ll probably find you naturally become motivated to get stuck into some meaty work again- this really works!)
- Give your Inner child gratification (this is a big one. In other words, if you’ve been pushing through and working hard for weeks it means you’ve probably been suppressing your inner child i.e. that part of you that just wants to go outside and play. This uses up tremendous willpower. So, let your inner child out, kids are great for helping you with this so get out to some waterslides or the beach with your kids and say yes to playing with them and letting your own inner child out.
I’m personally fascinated with this behavioural science/human performance stuff so I do hope it’s useful to others out there.
Until next week, happy holidays, and do share what you do to hit the reset button.