Why It’s Important To Take A Break. . . Whenever You Need One!
I used to clean, organize, and work on projects when I had a housekeeper come to clean my house. I’ve hesitated to take time off if Adam has to work. I know all too well the struggle to take a break when the people around you are busy. And it’s even harder when they’re overwhelmed.
Today’s questioner also struggles with this and asked Is it okay if I want to take a break and do nothing for a while when other people are already struggling to complete their tasks?
And while there’s a lot of nuance that we’ll dive into, the truth is that if you need a break, you’ll only become less helpful, not more to the people around you if you keep pushing through exhaustion and burnout. Without knowing more details about the questioner’s situation, I’m going to offer some general advice about taking a break from work when everyone else is overwhelmed with their projects. Read on or check out the video below for all the details!
There are a few factors that come into play here:
First – you have a limited amount of mental, physical, and emotional energy to spend each day. When you consistently spend more energy than you have, you set yourself up for burnout, illness, disorder, and disease.
Second – you’re only responsible for yourself. You are not responsible for the thoughts, feeling, and actions of others. There’s some nuance here though.
You have a limited amount of energy
Let’s start with the limited amount of energy. The only way to refill your reserves of energy is through self-care.
This may feel counterintuitive, but the more you build consistent, sufficient, and sustainable self-care into your daily routine, the more you’ll be able to do! Because you’ll be coming from a place of being rested, nourished, and fully energized, you are actually MORE productive when you take time out for self-care.
If you’re feeling like your energy reserves are low, taking a break is ESSENTIAL to helping keep you healthy and productive in both the short term and the long run.
The key here is to make sure you use your down time to actually refill your reserves. There’s a lot of confusion between self-care, self-work, and distraction. Often all three are lumped together under self-care, but only true self-care will refill your energy reserves. You can learn more about the difference and building a self-care routine that will work for you in my free self-care toolkit – grab your copy here, or in the sign-up box below!
It isn’t your responsibility to take care of the world
Ok, now let’s talk about what you are, and are not, responsible for! From the phrasing of this question, I’m guessing the questioner was talking about other people at work who are struggling to get their assigned tasks taken care of. However, this information applies to your personal life as well as your work life – just substitute boss with parent, and co-workers with friend, family member, etc.
If you’re their boss, then it would be important you find ways to support your employees in completing their tasks.
If these are projects that co-workers (who don’t report directly to you) have taken on above and beyond their normal responsibility, IF and only IF you have the extra energy, it would be great if you took the time to help them complete these extra assignments.
However, if your co-workers struggle with time management, their own boundary issues, or are in positions where their regular responsibilities are beyond their skill set, you’re only enabling their suffering to continue if you regularly “bail them out” when they get overwhelmed.
This may sound harsh, but if someone’s struggling to keep their head above water, sometimes they need to reach the bottom of the ocean before they can push off and reorient themselves.
The grey area is all about boundaries
This grey area of where to step up and where to step back gets into big boundary work. In the beginning it can be really tough to determine where to draw the lines.
If you’re interested in learning more about boundaries, get my free Boundaries Quick Start Guide in the box above or using this link. And if you want 1:1 support, book a no-cost Discovery Call with me and lets start the conversation!
The key takeaway from this question is that self-care isn’t selfish. Rest, restore, and take breaks when you need them. Because taking care of yourself is actually the BEST way to make sure you have what it takes to help out and take care of other people.
I’m sending you a great big hug – you’ve got this!
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