You Don’t Have Time Not To Take Time

“Monday was the low point. That’s when I had a real breakdown.”?

These were the words my mentee shared with me yesterday. They then proceeded to reel off a list of all the present causes of stress and worry that had contributed to the breakdown…and how all of these were still present.

Topping the list was the fact that they were going to have nowhere to live if things didn’t change in the next month. Now this person is one of the hardest working, most ethical young people I’ve come across, so I knew that their present situation was not the result of them not doing what was required.

The truth was simple. They were burnt out and had exhausted all the avenues they could presently see that might move them forward. I think they were expecting strategic advice about a fresh approach they could take, or some extra calls they could be making.

I did suggest a fresh approach…but certainly, not the one they were expecting. My invitation consisted of two words: ‘Down Tools’.

They’d been operating in medium to high fight/flight for the best part of 10 days. The breakdown was near inevitable…and literally, no good could come of trying to force more outputs from a system that was starved of the inputs needed to produce results.

Thankfully, we have the perfect metaphor available to us..one that I invite you to hold with you this week and beyond. Perhaps you’re reading these words upon this living metaphor: your phone.

If you’ve ever let your phone battery deplete so much that the phone switches itself off, you’ll know that when you see this symbol:

There’s nothing for it. You simply have to wait for your phone to attain a sufficient charge for it to be operable once more. You plug in…and you wait.

My mentee was at full empty (which I note is a great oxymoron/paradox). Nothing to be done but down all tools, turn off all devices and let the system reboot itself, perhaps courtesy of a walk in the sun, a dip in the sea, or a board game with friends. Anything but thinking about or trying to resolve the myriad issues they are facing.

One of the principles I’ve shared in past newsletters and CoffeeCasts is ‘change the energy, change the result’. Simply put, if the energy you are in is not serving you and you are not achieving what you want, then your first job is to shift the energy so that new possibilities open up.

This is such a fine balancing act. Because another principle I’ve been trying on recently is ‘don’t don your best, do what is required’. Yes, this can be passed off as hypermasculine etc but there is something to it…we each have a warrior inside us that strives for greatness and achievement.

So how can we recognise when we’re truly at ‘full empty’…when what is actually required (so that we can do what is required) is to recharge. For me, there is a key word: Capacity.

To feel into our core and ask ourselves if we truly have the capacity to keep striving. If you get a solid ‘no’, you know that literally, the best thing you can do for whatever you are trying to achieve is to down tools (and this could be for an hour, a day, a week, depending on the severity of the depletion).

And if the clarity is to down tools, then knowing how you’re going to revitalise is key. Do you need to snuggle by the hearth with a cup of cocoa? Do you need driving rains and lashing winds as you hit the trail and let the wildness without rekindle the wildness within?

I hope you can see from the above…this is a dance. For those of us who choose to pursue a greater life, there will be times when we must pause so we can recharge, sharpen, and enliven. Progress is not linear. We rise in leaps and bounds…but for every leap, there must be a landing, for every expansion a contraction. This is the way of our world.

And the real secret? It is, of course, to keep joy and flow states such a regular part of our daily routines that burnout never gets a look in. We’ll get there. We may just need to be ok with downing tools a few times on the way.

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