What Rest Has to Do With Success

Can we succeed in our efforts without rest? Maybe. It depends on what you think success is. I believe success is more than a sales number, business plan, level or mentality. If we are successful in our social media reach, but nobody catches our core values or engages deeper with us - have we really been successful? What if that reach costs us our sleep and sanity? Are we successful if we limp across the finish line with multiple injuries and barely conscious? We all have different measures for success so it's super important we get clear on what success looks and feels like. Maybe you're okay with one level of success or maybe you're just now deciding that a holistic view of success would feel much better.

If your strategy doesn't include a healthy work/life balance and good rest along the way, I would press you to consider if it is going to lead you to true success. Rest has everything to do with success. In fact, rest is the platform that success is built off of. Here's the challenge:

Instead of viewing rest as the reward of your work, look at is as the foundation of it. We work out of our rest instead of resting from our work. Let's say you get really good at closing up shop by 5 pm every day. You spend the rest of your night hanging out with your family, reading a good book, taking a walk or pursuing a new hobby. You are able to decompress your body and mind at a reasonable hour and get to bed. You've had a solid 14 hours between 5 pm and 8 am the next day to step away from work. You wake up ready to go and know you've got 8 hours to make it happen. It's refreshing to know there's a start and an end time to your work day. You use rest as the catalyst for good, hard work. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there you are loosely finishing up your day at 5 pm. You take a brief break to step away from your laptop and cell phone to throw together something to eat. You open your work back up while you multitask and try to get in an episode on Netflix. You get sucked in and look up, it's 11 pm. You're ready to collapse in bed. You have restless sleep because your mind just won't turn off. The alarm goes off and you roll out of bed. You spend the first half of the morning trying to actually wake up. By lunch, you're in a zone and the cycle repeats.

Do you collapse in your bed at the end of the day out of sheer exhaustion or do you give yourself ample time to wind down and enjoy some rest (that's not just sleeping!)? It doesn't have to be that drastic either. A lot of time our rest slowly shrinks over time, we fall out of a healthy rhythm of rest. Do you use rest to fuel your work or do you use rest to recover from your work? Resting is amazing. I have learned this in the last year and it has rocked my world. I cannot tell you enough that rest is BEAUTIFUL. Shutting down, powering off and putting work away is foundational to our growth.

Good rest gives us so many gifts. Increased energy, clarity, drive and passion. It gives us more time with our family and friends. It gives us space to pursue...well, whatever we want! It allows us to refocus and find enjoyment out of new things. When we rest, we can take a step out of feeling stuck. With rest, we can find true success.

Resting Is My {New} Hobby,

Coach Alicia

P.S. Hustle culture screams at us - don't rest. Check out my response to that.