On some level, we all basically want to be Superman or Superwoman – charging ahead to overcome every challenge, achieve our goals, and save the world for ourselves and our loved ones.
From time to time, though, it is necessary to pause, take a deep breath, step down, and get out of your own way. In today’s always-on and supercharged world, many of us end up burning out dramatically, and falling prey to chronic stress and anxiety.
Here are a few examples of instances where you should consider taking a break from the constant grind.
Technical tasks that you are not qualified for, where the potential consequences of failure are severe
When you have a problem with the electrical wiring in your home, it’s really important that you get in touch with Electrical Services experts to fix things for you – unless you, yourself, happen to be a professional electrician.
There are always going to be certain technical issues that arise in your life, that you’re not qualified to deal with, and that comes with severe potential consequences if handled in the wrong way.
DIY is all well and good – but save it for situations where a major mishap on your part isn’t likely to cost you your life, health, or the structural integrity of your home.
Projects and goals that you’re working on, that you’ve long since discovered you don’t actually find meaningful after all
We often set ourselves pretty ambitious goals without really understanding everything that those goals entail.
This is natural – and the best way to deal with this situation is to constantly be refining, reflecting on, and adjusting our goals as we go along, in order to ensure that we are properly assimilating the new knowledge we gain, and following on the best path forward.
If you’re particularly stubborn or driven, however, you may find it just about impossible to let go of certain goals, or even tweak them significantly, once you’ve committed to them. The problem here arises when you discover that some goal that you’re working towards doesn’t actually seem meaningful to you after all – and maybe never did.
Life is too short to spend chasing goals that don’t have intrinsic meaning to you. So, consider taking another path, instead.
When you are at the point of burnout, and your productivity is unlikely to increase substantially
At certain times, we all need to put in a lot of hard work, above and beyond the point where we feel like it’s really doing much good for our sense of well-being.
At times, though, this situation becomes the default rather than the exception – and we can drive ourselves to the point of complete burnout, even though it seems unlikely that our productivity is going to increase substantially beyond that point.
Research on highly-ambitious executives found, paradoxically, that when those executives were forced to take some time off on a regular basis from work, their productivity actually increased rather than decreased.
In order to keep performing at your peak, you need to counterbalance the time spent working, with time spent relaxing and rejuvenating.
Leave a Reply