The antidote for exhaustion is wholeheartedness

Tiredness is telling.?

In the personal development world, exhaustion is often induced so that people can get to a place of realness about what is going on in their lives.?

It’s understandable and predictable that the end of the year brings fatigue (although the concept of a year-end in business is a false construct given that a two-week break changes no patterns whatsoever), but the ‘moment’ of tiredness often passes unrecognised and thus loses its potential value.

So, from across my client base, I thought I’d share some insights about the cause of CEO fatigue that I experience:

• Pursuing a strategy that fundamentally doesn’t work (or, at a minimum, doesn’t meet ambitions) causes full-time strain: on the business and the CEO

• An under-strength leadership team that surrounds the CEO causes upward pressure on the CEO, both in terms of volume and in terms of complexity

• A lack of buffering (i.e. the space a CEO creates to think) crowds out important strategic reflection that robs a business of important business insights and breakthroughs

• CEOs whose businesses lack humanity (i.e. meaning, purposefulness, connection) can feel hollow at the end of an arduous year

• CEOs who ignore their self-care experience physical and mental fatigue as the ‘happy chemicals’ run out

• Too few interactions with nature (which, in my view, is the single most effective counterbalance to stress and overwhelm) can leave CEOs feeling ‘un-human’

‘Noble rest’ is a beautiful concept that might be worth clocking. It suggests a form of rest beyond sitting on a sofa and moving toward renewal and soul nourishment. This is the rest CEOs should seek.

As the poet David Whyte tells the story, a meeting with a German monk colleague produced the following quote when David asked him what he could do about his exhaustion.

“David, the antidote to exhaustion is not rest. The antidote is becoming wholehearted”.

When I first heard this, I found it profound. It hit me squarely between the eyes such is the value of this insight into the human condition.

Keep an eye on your Soul. It’s always telling you what you need to hear, but you’ll need to acknowledge it and tune into it. When your Soul is whole, excellent performance will follow.

This is the essence of Sacred Success: performance integrated with humanity.