The last 14 months have presented a supreme economic challenge to many people, especially to business owners but certainly to career achievers as well.

Suppose you are a diligent worker, and everybody knows that. As normal schedules resume, you arrive on time, consistently offer your best effort, dawdle very little, often work late, and head home knowing that you gave it your all. Once you arrive home you have other responsibilities, some taking up half or more of the evening.

Here is a basic question: Are you consistently getting needed rest so that you can keep your well-oiled machine operating at peak efficiency? In other words do you:

• Take pauses throughout the workday to rest and reflect,

• Depart each day at a reasonable hour (at least most days),

• Get a good night’s sleep every night, and

• Have some form of relaxation on Saturday and Sunday?

If you answered no to any of the questions above, it’s probably an area where you need to focus.

Fatigue isn’t Pretty

In the course of a career, as you rise through the ranks, or simply take on more responsibility right where you are, like everyone else in the global workforce, understandably you are subject to fatigue.

You simply cannot be at your best, hour after hour, day after day, and week after week if you don’t take care of yourself, especially focusing on rest and relaxation.

Everything written above has been apparent to you for years if not decades. How often do you pay heed to your internal wisdom, however, about when and where you need to have some timeouts?

If you graduated from college at 21 or 22 and work until age 71 or 72, that is a 50-year career. Who among us can work for 50 years and not expect to have some disruptions along the way? We need to take periodic breaks to attain the periodic rest that we need.

For example, in the course of the workweek, how many times do you give yourself permission to retire to bed early at, say, 8:30-9 p.m.? How many times, in the course of the workweek, do you have a truly leisurely non-hurried lunch where you get to properly chew and digest your food?

A Moment Like This

How many times do you take one minute, the full 60 seconds, to pause what you’re currently doing, stretch, gaze out the window, ruminate and reflect, and then turn back to the task at hand? If you’re like too many professionals today, across the board, I’m guessing that your answers to the questions above are “not often enough.”

You know by now that no one else is coming to help you deal with your personal need for rest and relaxation. Attaining such rest is a do-it-to-yourself proposition. Either you will take charge of the issue, or the issue will take charge of you.

To paraphrase the renown poet, Robert Frost, you’ve got miles to go, and promises to keep. Others are counting on you. Most of all, you need to be able to count on yourself – to be present, to handle the tough challenges, to come back and do it again, and to stay buoyant all the while.

Fortunately, you have what you need to maintain that well-oiled machine, and now, it’s simply a matter of putting what you know into practice.

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