| One of the questions I’m asked regularly is how I’m able to take so much time off. The truth is, I don’t. What you might see as me being ‘off again’ is actually me managing my time and energy in order to serve my clients – and my audience – power-fully. There’s some really heavy weight BS out there about time and energy management – one of the biggest myths is that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. WRONG! If you love what you do, you’ll risk working longer hours than everyone else, neglect your own needs and burn out. I burned myself out in the first lockdown. While every other ‘guru’ was advising people to cut back, I was reinventing my products and services, creating programmes to enable growth in challenging times, and saying ‘yes’ too often. My ‘serve and inspire’ default went into overdrive and I quickly found myself oversubscribed, working full days, evenings and weekends. Everyone has energy patterns. If I look back through my career, even as a junior reporter, I’d work full out and then, suddenly, hit a brick wall and need to stop. As a journalist who worked unsociable hours, I always had a bank of days owing, so it was easy for me to take a long weekend, or a week off, whenever I needed to crash. When I went into self-employment, I conveniently forgot all about my naturally undulating energy patterns and fell for that line about never needing a break when we’re following our soul purpose. The lockdown burnout was the kick up the proverbial I needed. I couldn’t serve the world if I wasn’t serving myself. I was running a training event in Cannes, with my friend Dr Andrea Pennington, when she told me she’d started taking a week every month for personal care and growth At first, it seemed outrageous! I still remember Andrea smiling at me and, in that lovely US drawl of hers, saying: “I bet you could, Taz – all it takes is a little diary management.” That was in 2019. I started re-organising my diary as soon as I got back home, and I never looked back. Active resting How do I take so much time off? I don’t take time ‘off’ as such. I deliberately schedule time where I’m not taking 1:1 coaching appointments and fill my days with plans that will boost my energy, knowledge and inspiration. I call it ‘active resting’. The result? I’m energised, excited, inspired, always learning and growing – and my clients reap the rewards. If you’re in the business of serving and supporting others, I highly recommend you step back and look for your own energy patterns. When you’ve worked out how regularly you need to recharge, and for how long, you can plug those times into your schedule to ensure you’re always operating at optimum levels. When you do that, I promise you, you’ll be able to serve your clients even more power-fully. Until next time, #UnleashYourAwesome, Taz X |
