Rest and reward are as much a business process as the work itself. When we borrow energy from our body for too long, it collects on that debt with interest.
Learning to enjoy and reward yourself is just as important a process as working.
What follows is more relevant to workaholics and people with a high work ethic.
There is a category of people whose internal engine never stops knocking, pushing them further and further. Some call it healthy ambition, others call it an inability to balance work and rest.
Either way, there are a lot of people who are used to grinding. I am one of them.
I have worked hard since I was 17, and my only week of vacation was the honeymoon in Egypt and Israel right after the wedding.
I made peace long ago with the fact that I do not know how to rest properly. My Nastya balances me out here. She takes the initiative and organises our time off herself.
At the same time, I understand that resting and rewarding yourself for work is just as important a business process as the work at the office or the shoots in the studio.
When we only take energy from our body and never give it back in the form of joy and good experiences, at some point the psyche simply stops coping and puts us into sleep mode:
- either you hit hard burnout and apathy,
- or you start getting sick out of nowhere and spend a week in bed,
- or you throw yourself into a brand-new project or niche just to feel something new and positive.
When we borrow our life force from our body for too long, at some point it starts collecting on that debt with heavy interest.
Better not to let it get that far, and to reward yourself on a schedule.
For myself, I decided that after every good stretch of work or small achievement I would give myself a mini-celebration or a day off.
Yesterday the girls and I went to Respublika mall to celebrate the successful launch of the new “SMM from Scratch” course that Paula and I built. Fifty people signed up for the very first cohort, in a new format where I am not the main speaker. That is a good result, in my view. My optimistic plan was 35 people per cohort.
So yesterday we ate good food, gave each other little gifts, and watched a great film, “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Time like that is not a whim or a waste of money. It is a way of saying thank you to your brain and your psyche. Of rewarding them for all the energy they supply while you are working.
Without proper pauses and breathing room, without nice gifts and rewards, we simply burn out, and we stop liking not only our work but our life in general.
When you are running a long marathon, it is crucial to pace yourself and not run that distance like a hundred-metre sprint.
Do you know how to rest properly? Do you manage to reward yourself for the work you have done?