The Break I Didn’t Know I Needed
Last weekend, I got sick with some kind of virus.
When I woke up early Monday to finish Monday Musings, I knew right away I was in for a rough few days. My team does “psyched about” and “stressed about” in our Monday morning updates, and I couldn’t even think of something I was psyched about. I told them, “Ask me tomorrow.” It was the start of a couple of days where all I could muster was join meeting, take nap, repeat. Over the next 48 hours, I slept at least 24 of them.
By Wednesday, my body was still on the mend, but feeling better. But all the sleep gave me an unexpected feeling. I thought, “My mind hasn't felt this fresh in months.” Even without the morning coffee, my mind felt alive and ready to work all day.
Getting sick turned out to be the forced break I didn’t know I needed.
Which, of course, means my existing routines and habits for managing energy must have been off for some time. Going without caffeine for two days reminded me that I’d been mindlessly consuming caffeine, rather than sticking to my stated 12 pm deadline each day to protect sleep. I also remembered that most times I get sick, it’s when I’ve fallen behind on sleep.
And when I asked myself how I’d gotten here, I realized that my busy schedule over the last few months had led me to skip my Monthly Strategy Time, the routine where I step back and assess how things are going. It’s the very routine designed to catch issues before they get bad. In fact, my whole system is built on the assumption that I’ll make mistakes and drift off course, and that routines like Monthly Strategy Time will shorten the time it takes to realize them.
The core insight: I don’t need any new ideas or knowledge about myself. I just need to more reliably act on what I already know.
I ended up laughing at that reflection because, as an executive coach, I tell busy clients this stuff all the time. I just forget how hard it is to do.
I’m not sharing this to take you through my week. I’m sharing it because any of us could be drifting from something we already know is good for us.
What might that be for you right now?
Whatever it is, I suspect the answer to the drift is already in what you know about yourself.