It’s day 7 of our 30 Day Brainstorm Challenge – Recharge the Battery
Today was a day for friendship.
This is the last day of my time in California to visit “The Daughter”. She and I had brunch with some friends today. Great friends whom I have known for awhile and are an important part of my L&D network. They are fun, witty and we are close enough to be able to keep each other honest when we go off the rails. Don’t you love it when you have people like that around you?
After a couple of frosty adult beverages, they said something important to me that made me have a BIG aha moment. See, these friends of mine also own their own business. They produce video and elearning stuff and they have dedicated this year as the year of “Intense Work and Intense Play”. The adjective, “intense”, is an important distinction which I will get to in a moment. It seems as we grow older, and more entrenched in our work habits, we put off the play part. We don’t take our vacations, we work weekends, we answer emails over dinner. Such a shame and what’s worse – we excuse our behavior as “that’s the way it is”. Their point to me was – we can’t continue to live to work. It’s time to work to play and they are on point.
Why are we stealing moments to recharge our personal batteries? Despite what we may believe, we are not “energizer bunnies”. What is the point of all this go, go, go – if we forget to stop and enjoy the moment, any moment. Tomorrow, I’ll read. Tomorrow, I’ll play with the dogs. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the beach. Tomorrow, I’ll make plans to see Hamilton. Tomorrow never comes. I figure I have about 10, 585 tomorrow’s left. If I don’t stop to recharge my batteries, that number will dwindle.
Intense Work, Intense Play
Not just a little work, and a little play. INTENSE work, INTENSE play. To me this meant working with a purpose. Working toward a “play” goal. Intense play, the same. Not just taking a break to enjoy some sunshine, but breaking away from work to do something memorable – from concerts to exploring – creating memories that stick with you for the rest of your 10,000+ days.
But first, you can’t do that unless you stop to recharge your batteries. When my battery is low, my creative juices stop flowing and it’s hard for me to think originally and productively. When I can’t think like a Rebel, I don’t produce work I’m happy with, it’s a vicious cycle. You can’t intensely work unless your battery is fully charged.
Choose you!
When it comes to time management, we are fooling ourselves. You can’t manage time, you can only manage the moments around the time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Don’t let those 24 hours rule you, you have to choose to lord over the moments.
Say what you will about those “millennials” and their commitment to a different form of work/life balance. They have seen the generations before them totally burn themselves out, only to die or suffer terrible health consequences before they retire. I don’t blame them for wanting no part of it. Seriously.
I don’t get to the west coast as often as I should. I’m from the Inland Empire area of Southern California. I have family and old friends there. It took my wonderfully honest friends to kick me in the butt and let me know that my excuses aren’t cutting it. Tomorrow never comes. So, I am making a commitment to head out West a minimum of 3 times a year.
That girls trip we have all been planning for ages…yeah…the one we all MEAN to take – we’re gonna do it. I’m committed to allowing my batteries to recharge so I can focus on “Intense work, Intense Play”.
So, I had two aha moments for this day 7 – Recharging the battery and working toward purpose. What are you doing to focus on recharging your battery? Do you have an “Intense Play” goal? Share it with us!
#LETSDOTHIS
NO! It’s not too late! See the original 30 Day Brainstorm Challenge post here
See Day 6: About Perspective
Check out the variety of participants and their challenge entries on the Learning Rebels Facebook page here
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