70: The Power of Rest

Hi everyone. I’m Saralyn Hodgkin, and this is the podcast to practice your leadership.

Taking 10 is a leadership practice. And hear me out. Cause when I started talking about taking 10, I was just like, what are you talking about? That’s just bullshit. Um, I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about it for a few weeks now and I’m just like, okay, I gotta talk this through. So here, hear me out.

I’m, I’m tired and I have really worked at parts of my life that now I’m at a stage where, whether it’s with my parenting, my work, my vocation, my health, whatever it is, it’s like, okay, I really need to discern what practices are useful and what practices are not.

And so, I mean, I’m sure like everybody, but I’m just in this space folks of just like, okay, I can’t do it all. I can’t take on every freaking practice that ever, no, you should be doing this. Oh, you should, I don’t massage your jaw, whatever. I don’t know, just like, I can’t do it all. And so I’ve been trying to discern what has the highest ROI.

And that doesn’t just include my energy currency, right. The return on investment that I get in terms of my energy and how I invest it and save it and spend it. Um, energy is currency. But also, what brings me alive and what, what can I stack inside things that I already do? And so taking 10 is something that I’ve been playing with for the last few weeks where I’m like, okay, yeah, this is worth it.

So here, here’s how this all came about. So, uh, I’m with my trainer, I’m doing the thing, the, the chest press, uh, with 25 pound dumbbells in each hand. Uh, I’m feeling pretty proud of that by the way, 25 pound dumbbells. My 14 year old, I think he used the word mid, uh, in, in his response of how proud I was, uh, with this number.

But anyways, I’m feeling good about it. So that’s an aside. I do my reps and I come off that and then I turn to the cable machine thingy. I’m sure there’s a better term for that. Anyways, cable machine thingy. And then I do this pull down thing for my triceps and, and, uh, my trainer’s looking at me and I’m fucking giving her and he’s really trying not to assist.

And I, I finished my reps like, Oh my gosh, that was hard. That was difficult. What made that so difficult? He’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s more weight and you know, this is your second set and you’ve got this right, like trainers do. Right? Like looking at you like you asked for this challenge, I’m giving it to you and you can do it and you can rise.

Okay. God dammit. Yeah. Okay, thanks. So then I turn to the, to the chest press again and I go and I do my reps. And I’m like, okay, I just need a moment. So I do an emotional lap, which is like, I just need a moment before I hit the triceps again. And, uh, I go, I do my emotional lap. I go to the cable pull down thingy, do my tricep thingamabob and I come off it.

And I look at him like that was, why was that easier? Like, this is my, uh, third or fourth set and that was easier. I think you even made it harder maybe, but like that was easier. Why is that? And he looked at me, he’s like, uh, cause you took 10, what do you mean I took 10? And he and I go on into this conversation of him saying, you took time, that emotional lap you did, you took time, you took 10 seconds or more to just take a moment and take a rest and it made a difference in how you came back to that tricep set.

And I was like, shut up. That’s my reaction. I think I actually said, you got to fuck off. But nicely, I said it nicely, but not nicely, but like not at him. Just like at the concept, because what triggered for me was like, Oh, are you kidding me? That basically taking a moment and taking a rest actually helped me achieve that goal.

Well, that’s not what I’ve learned about what productivity is. Like you go hard and you go at it and you attack and you finish that thing. I mean, it can be, it can be a dishwasher. Like you’re tired. Doesn’t matter. Get the dishwasher done because then you’re going to have an easier morning. And like just all this narrative around what, what, what being productive, what being, you know, tackling something like what that means.

And it does not include rest. It does not include taking 10. And, um, Is that, is that, is that just me? Is that everybody? And I’m like, no, no, this is like a thing. And you know, many of you who are listening right now, we’ve talked about this, is that taking a rest makes a difference, but until you feel the need to take a rest, take the rest, and then you come back stronger, it is hard to embody the concept of a re imagined definition of productivity until you feel that.

And in that moment, it really hit for me, I theoretically and rationally understand that you need to rest. I get the whole concept around, um, uh, plug in your phone, like, like you plug in your phone, plug in yourself. So you recharge, don’t go down to zero, uh, so on and so on. Your apps don’t work as well when you’re at 10 percent and 5%, you know, like I, I get all of that theory folks.

I get it. And yet, until I feel it, until I feel the effect of being super fatigued, yet I have a goal, I’m still going to go at it. And instead of just going right into it, I rested. I took my 10 and came back at it. And achieved, he didn’t assist, and I felt strong at it. It was like, oh, this embodied knowing, this total visceral knowing, like one, one part of it is this visceral knowing that, okay, taking a rest is required to reach your goals.

Okay. And then also like the same, in the same moment being really pissed off. Oh my God. I can’t believe that it is so hard for me to not just acknowledge that, but honestly, deeply believe it and then practice it. Cause it is common sense to take a rest, but it is not common practice to rest, to really have that knowing that rest and that deep, just knowing that rest allows me to go out in the world and achieve my goals. That reimagining what productivity means, means including rest in that definition. And whether that’s taking 10 seconds in between reps, or whether it’s taking 10 minutes between closing down my computer at the end of the day, and taking 10 minutes to just rest, put my feet up the wall, child’s pose, feet in the grass, take a breath before I get into some significant parenting, for example.

Like that 10 minutes allows me to recalibrate and you know, the recharge and so on, but also just like get myself back into myself. Or it can be 10 hours. Honestly, unplugging, I just did it the other day, unplugging for an entire day, like get up in the morning, don’t touch my phone, like don’t, like don’t even.

And for that day, that those 10 hours or more, it’s just like, I’m unplugged. I am resting. Or 10 days, taking a 10 day vacation or staycation, or actually I’ve now determined that I really like home cations. So then I don’t have to pack anything. I don’t go anywhere. I can just stay home. I like that. Anyways, a whole nother side, but it’s, it’s this take your 10.

Did you take 10? And that can be even 10 seconds in between back to back calls, right? Yep. Yep. There’s something here for me about recognizing and learning that not including rest in, in my practices, in my agency, in my life, in my leadership, in my parenting, in my life, that if I don’t do that, compassion fatigue is real, burnout is real, and I can only hustle with that for so long.

I can only do that for so long. There is a real power and agency in rest. So folks with that, whatever that looks like for you all, my invitation to you is in the practice of your leadership, how does rest come into that so that you can meet your goals so that you can look at where you’re headed, where you can actually create a narrative for yourself that I think for me that if I reimagine a definition of being productive, that that definition of productivity has to include rest for my own sanity if for nothing else.

So power of rest folks. It’s real. Practice your leadership, stay on the journey.

Thanks all. I’m Saralyn you can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.