Vacation - Rest & RecoveryTHURSDAY, JULY 23RD, 2009
I’m going on vacation. Today! The question is are you? Have you gone on vacation this year? If so, how often and for how long? In America for some reason we don’t vacation often enough or don’t feel vacation have the value they should. It’s almost as if we have to die and be carried off on our shield or we haven’t given enough for our company.
In the Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Jack Schwartz they point out how just the opposite is true. In fact if you’re wondering why you don’t feel energized at work, you don’t come up with any ideas and apply them the truth is it’s because you are working too much, too hard and not taking enough time for rest and recovery.
Don’t take my word for it, I urge you to pick up the cd or book of the Power of Full Engagement to get a much healthier look at the value of rest and recovery. Jim Loehr did research on athletes and found that the difference between champions, the very best performers wasn’t what they did during the contest as much as how they rested and recovered during the contest. In other words the champions new how to recovery and rest better than their competition.
Here are some quotes from experts they cited in the book
“The great geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less. It is a very good plan every now and then to go away and have a little relaxation….When you come back to the work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgment.”
- Leonardo da Vinci in Treatise on Painting
“All action begins in rest….Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.”
- Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher
“Where are you when you get your best ideas? Almost no one claims to get their best ideas at work.”
- Michael Gelb, Author “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”
“Remember that growth actually takes place during recovery. We grow the most during the sleep cycle, which explains why children require considerably more sleep than adults. Growth hormones and repair enzymes are released most abundantly during sleep as are various chemical restoration processes.”
- Jim Loehr, Stress for Success
“…thinking uses a great deal of energy. The brain represents just 2 percent of the body’s weight, but requires almost 25% of its oxygen. The consequences of insufficient mental recovery range from increased mistakes of judgment and execution to lower creativity and a failure to take reasonable account of risks. The key to mental recovery is to give the conscious, thinking mind intermittent rest.”
-Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement
..The highest form of creativity depends on a rhythmic movement between engagement and disengagement, thinking and letting go, activity and rest. Both sides of the equation are necessary, but neither is sufficient by itself.”
-Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement
“’Overwork is this decade’s cocaine, the problem without a name. Workaholism is an obsessive-compulsive disorder, that manifests itself through self-imposed demands, and inability to regulate work habits and an overindulgence in work – to the exclusion of most other life activities.’ Unlike most addiction workaholism is often admired, encouraged and materially well rewarded.”
-Bryan Robinson, expert on addiction and the phenomenon of workaholism [The Power of Full Engagement]
Here’s my question for you: When your next period of rest and recovery? If you understand the value of this, your business and your job may actually depend upon it! Plan your next vacation now.
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