Learning When to Unplug

Regardless of your commitments, sometimes you just need to unplug.

One of my goals for the year is to increase my outreach and establish more of a social media presence. So, in the month of June, I challenged myself to post content on my LinkedIn profile five days per week. Surprisingly, I didn’t find the experience to be as painful as I had imagined it to be and found the process to be quite the confidence booster. It helped that I viewed this challenge as an experiment, where my only motive was to develop the habit and routine of posting daily without any concern for the number of likes and comments I received.

After my June success, I committed to posting every day in July. 

Yes, seven (7) days per week, including posting while I’d be away on vacation. I went as far as to pre-schedule my posts to go live while I was away. 

There was one little snag in my plan. I had no posts scheduled for when I returned home. My thinking was that I’d be well rested from my vacation and would have no problem getting back into the groove and writing my daily posts.

You know what they say about assuming. 😏 

You guessed it, I definitely assumed wrong! I was still mentally and emotionally exhausted, even after 5 days of floating in a pool all day and being completely detached from the world.

I was left with a choice: fight through the exhaustion and honor my commitment to posting daily or give myself more time to recharge. My decision was easy. 

I unplugged, without any guilt or shame, and I took the rest of the month off and gave myself the gift of time. 

Emails went unanswered, things requiring too much brain power were either deleted or delayed, and I’m all the better for it. The old me would have been stressing about failing for not completing my commitment to this July challenge. The new me recognized that my commitment to my wellbeing and my health are my highest priority. Because if I’m not at my best, I can’t deliver my best. 

As a result of giving myself another week and a half of mentally slowing down, the mental juices started flowing again. 

• I’m back to posting daily on LinkedIn.
• I’m bringing back my monthly roundtable discussions (you can register here). 
• I’m developing an online course to help people struggling with completing their goals learn using a step-by-step system that breaks your goals into actionable and achievable items (more to come soon). 

Moral of the Story: Your commitment to your goals is important, but not at the expense of your personal wellbeing. Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up.

Here’s a quick tip you can implement if you’re feeling overwhelmed or burnt out: 

1. Get quiet and ask yourself: What do I need at this moment? 
2. Pay attention and listen to the first thing that comes to you.
3. Act on that first thought (don’t give yourself time to think your way out of it). 

Your mind, body, and soul will thank you for it.