July 8, 2022 – The Seventy-Third Official Friday Night BeerBlog

I have been on vacation all of this last week. As I write this, I am in the slow build-up, knowing that “reality” looms just days away. I could be down about that or I can just enjoy these last couple of days before “the return” happens. Which do you think I’m doing?

Don’t Let Life Bite You In The Ass

Athletes need rest in order to reach performance goals. You would think that in all of my years in cycling that I would have figured out that life is the same way. For athletes, hard workouts only with no rest days leads only to burnout and being overtrained. Their performance becomes flat. I have been there. And there is nothing more frustrating than feeling that you are doing everything possible to improve to just continue at the same level with no improvement.

Life and life pursuits are the same. If you are a working stiff and just existing day in and day out or if you are trying to create or become something new and pushing, pushing, pushing without any rest, then the life you are working on will bite you in the ass.

It’s Time To Take A Break

I am a rat on a cheeto. That is a saying that some of my cycling friends coined a few years ago about someone that just won’t stop a thing regardless of whether it’s good or bad. That person is like a rat on a cheeto when it comes to that thing. This is my general nature. I am easy to start something, but am hard to stop something. Me needing a break is telegraphed to everyone, but me. I begin to over-analyze and take any non-movement of a thing as a personal failure.

Through late May and all of June, a mini-personal breakdown was like writing on the wall. It may have been more evident to Mike early on, but it wasn’t until mid-June that I realized that I might be in trouble. And that is an interesting way to describe it, because I wasn’t in any danger per se, but for me, getting to the point where I knew I needed some time off, it was almost too late.

I was mentally at DEFCON 2. Now I know that If I reach DEFCON 1, there mostly certainly would be a mental shut down. As in I quit. Like everything. Poof. When you are pushing yourself so hard and don’t feel you are getting anywhere, it is just so easy to throw in the towel. And this could be in anything – work, a venture, losing weight, gaining fitness. There is an absolute breaking point. And I was feeling the pressure.

I’m Not The Only One

I don’t talk about my mental state a week or so ago to garner any type of sympathy or attention. This shit happens to everybody. I am no busier than anyone else out there hustling in life. I know that working to a breaking point is not something that I have the market cornered on.

So many people I know are burning their candles at all six ends. It comes with the territory of who we are and where we are in life. But we aren’t doing anyone around us any favors by thinking that if we martyr ourselves that everything will be fine. Cause it won’t.

You are setting yourself up for a big, huge, massive, supernova of a melt down.

What A Break Does

It was so funny that my last “to-do” item before I took a much needed break was to record a podcast episode with Sandy Cohen of the Inner Peace To Go podcast. She also writes a wellness blog for Shondaland.com (Yes, that Shondaland of Shonda Rhimes / Bridgerton / Inventing Anna fame). The conversation we had was on the benefits of a digital detox. The digital world can be quite overwhelming and contribute to all those feelings of burnout. I was intrigued when she told me that our brains require being bored in order to regain creative function. But if we are always forcing it with work or filling it with social media, that we are not benefitting from that creativity.

Then I found out that where Mike and I were headed the next day for 5 days had no cell signal or wifi. Like ZERO – ZILCH. Part of me was worried and a little panicked. How would I get in touch with family or fill all of those blank moments with nothing else to do? The other part of me was relieved that this thing was out of my control. I was resigned to embrace it and the people that I was there with. How do you live without a thing? Don’t have that thing readily available. Period.

The Reward Of A Break

When you are all in and decide that time off will be actual time off, you will actually mentally heal much faster than if you fight it. Our vacation mates and I were all a little hesitant and definitely went through some digital DTs. But forced relaxation where we were able to have face to face conversation, take naps, play board games, and laugh until we peed our pants (shhh) filled the soul. I could feel my mind calm down those “have to” things that had been driving me for months. I was able to reevaluate and rededicate myself to the things that are important.

Vacations don’t have to be grand. You don’t have to travel to far away places, although that’s pretty cool to experience. You can vacation close to home or you can vacation at home. But you have to work to put your mind in the shut down mode. As long as you know it’s not forever, the benefits will be far greater than pushing yourself toward burnout.

Every competitive athlete that I know swears by rest and attributes their success to that rest. Not the hard workouts. Everyone knows you have to work hard to succeed, but not many know how much rest contributes to that same success.

There is someone out there reading this or listening to the podcast that is totally where I was just a couple weeks ago. And trust me friend, the benefits of a break are immeasurable. I know because I almost missed it. And I’m so glad I didn’t.

LLM

Podcast Version for your listening pleasure:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1594894/10929667