Why is it so hard to take time off?
Like loads of people I know at the moment, my kids and I caught a sickness bug this month. I felt truly awful and did something that I’ve never done before as a self-employed person - took a day off sick.
Unlike when I worked in an office, this felt like an incredibly difficult thing to do. Despite having wonderful clients and collaborators who are understanding about illness and looking after yourself, I felt guilty and worried about cancelling my meetings and pushing back a couple of deadlines.
I did manage to get a couple of urgent things done, but I realised it was no good attempting to push on. Instead, I went to bed and watched Netflix. I wrestled with myself to switch off from work mode - something that is so much harder now I’m the boss. Despite my body shutting down and saying no, my mind was up to its old tricks and desperate to keep doing.
My problem is a busy mind and a not so busy body
Our minds are problem solving tools and they love a problem or a thing to keep them busy. That’s why work can be fun, fulfilling and amazing, but also why we can beat ourselves up so much when we aren’t that productive or able to do as much as we want.
I heard the phrase ‘the ego loves to seek and never find’ recently and it sums it up for me. We love to keep going, exploring and trying, but we don’t always like the end destination. It feels a bit twee now, but the Hallmark classic ‘it’s about the journey not the destination’ is very true too.
So while being busy isn’t our job or purpose, the doing is to some extent the point. But the rush we feel to achieve is a false economy, because the destination will never be as fulfilling as route we took to get there.
Scarcity in life and business can convince us that if we don’t do everything immediately, we’ll miss out. But perhaps we are missing out because we are doing too much right now. The full experience is about all of it – completing projects and the big achievements AND making it a sustainable and enjoyable ride to get there.
What I’ve realised I want more of, is an ability to find ease in the journey. To know that it’s okay to go slow, to smell the roses, to take a day off when I’m sick (or just because I fancy it), and that I’m doing okay and can still do everything that I want to – which sometimes is watching Netflix in bed, even when I’m feeling well.