Always Be ... Growing?
ALWAYS. BE. GROWING? No.
I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day about how LinkedIn/Corporate culture creates this pressure to use every waking minute to "invest in yourself" and to "grow grow grow". That if you don't have a side hustle, or if you're not able to monetize or leverage what you're doing to help in your career, that you're wasting time.
After that conversation, I went outside and for about 45 minutes threw these foam boomerangs with my kids. My step counter gave me no credit, because (as you can see) my feet never had to move.
And there was a moment when I just paused and thought: This is fun. I'm enjoying this.
It reminded me of being a kid - when you would play well past sunset, as the air got colder and crisper, but you were just enjoying the simple activity you were doing.
Afterwards, I felt great - and, the truth is, while you don't need to always be growing, moments like these can wind up doing more for you than constantly slogging away at trying to pack in more knowledge into your brain.
Most of the biggest problems I've solved was away from the desk. Most of biggest epiphanies, the biggest contributions came when I was doing something else and letting my mind just ... idle.
So - instead of kicking off your week by going into BEAST MODE and packing in as much as you can only to burn yourself out by Friday, take a beat. Take a few beats. There's too much pressure, too much stimulation, too much demand - none of which are at all effective at producing results.
Here's my Monday mission I'm throwing out there: go waste time. It'll be time worth spent.