Health, Happiness, Rest and Recovery: What’s really important as we start the New Year

“I wish I had let myself be happier.”

This is one of the top regrets of the dying and, while it may seem a maudlin way to start an article about intentions for the new year to focus on thoughts at the end of our life, sometimes we need a jolt of perspective to wake us up to what really matters in our lives.

At this time of year we are usually focused on setting goals to improve ourselves personally or professionally, but I’m going to use these end of life regrets to illustrate what gets in the way of us truly living our best lives now – and crucially what we can do about it.

Saboteur Interference

Often it’s our saboteurs – our inner critical voices and their negative commentary in our heads - that inhibit us from having peace of mind as we strive to achieve our goals, and stop us from truly expressing ourselves and following our dreams.

As Shirzad Chamine describes in his bestselling book ‘Positive Intelligence’ only 20% of people (and teams) achieve their true potential because of these inner saboteurs. They cause all of our stress, anxiety, self-doubt, guilt, shame, frustration, regret and unhappiness.

We all have an inner Judge, criticising and finding fault with ourselves, pointing out our flaws and what’s missing / not good enough – as well as finding fault with other people and the circumstances we find ourselves in. But we also have a host of other accomplice saboteurs that hijack us mentally when we try to change our ways or improve our path.

I have a strong Hyper Achiever saboteur which tells me my worth is tied up with the results I get; and leads to me pushing myself ‘to prove my worth’ and questioning my worth if I’m not getting the results I want to see. It can lead to a relentless work ethic – at times at the expense of my health (I’m a ‘recovering workaholic’ having experienced burnout several times in my career).

But crucially, and this is an important distinction: what it says is a lie……my true worth (as a human being) is completely independent of the results I get or what I produce.

My husband has a strong Stickler saboteur – a desire for everything he does to be perfect – which again can drive him to work incredibly hard long hours to ‘prove his worth’ with his ‘perfect’ results and when this inevitably proves unobtainable leads to a lot of stress, negativity and anxiety. He also has unrelenting high standards for other people which can have a negative impact on those around him….believe me!

The other possible saboteurs are Controller, Victim, Hyper Rational, Pleaser, Restless, Hyper Vigilant and Avoider.

All are equal opportunity destroyers.

So why am I telling you this?

Because our saboteur stories or lies undermine our peace of mind and happiness, drive us to work relentlessly hard, and ultimately have a negative influence on our relationships, our productivity, our business results and our life satisfaction.

What’s truly important

Our saboteurs drive our internal expectations – and when these are coupled with the external demands of our work and personal lives, not to mention the ongoing uncertainty, change and challenge from the pandemic – these can easily turn into stress, overwhelm and burnout.

In my work as a Coach (and before that as an Occupational Therapist working in a Primary Care Psychological Therapies Team) I’ve worked with many high achieving business leaders and professionals who have become lost in all their doing and who have needed guidance to reconnect to who they are and what is most important to them. I help them build their mental fitness (improving their mental recovery time when faced with challenges) so they can bring their best selves to their work, their relationships and their wider lives.

Many, myself included, only discover the true value of rest and recovery – and how this is an essential component of achieving our goals - after burning out or a midlife scare.

As Alex Soojung-Kim Pang says in his book ‘Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less’ the thing with rest is that we get caught up in the myth of thinking that we need to ‘earn’ it – something that we will do once we’ve finished everything else.

When the truth of the matter is too often we forget that our work provides us with a means to live, whereas rest gives meaning to our lives.

Work and rest are equally important.

Productive Play

Deliberate rest (or productive play as I like to call it) is restorative, it makes us more productive and it enhances our life. Nobody ever said ‘I wish I’d worked harder’ on their deathbed, as the regrets at the beginning of this article attest to.

So alongside setting goals ‘to do’ or achieve certain things as we start this new year– make sure you include some ‘to be’ restful goals or intentions and give yourself permission to take this productive time out. Consciously make time for it every day.

For example: In the mental fitness programme that I run we schedule regular 2 minute mindset reset breathers (which are literally that – mindful moments – at regular intervals throughout the day) to give your brain a chance to rest.

Micro moments like this can be really effective to help lessen the impact of your saboteur stress reactivity and enable you to connect to your higher Self or Sage brain – where you can think more clearly, have compassion for yourself and others, connect with meaning and purpose and explore, be curious and creative.

So if you really want to thrive in your life and work– and not just survive this coming year – create some boundaries for yourself and remind yourself regularly of who you are outside of your work role. Psychologists find that people who keep busy during their free time, who don’t check their email at night and on weekends; who truly leave work behind when they go on holiday are happier, more productive and more resilient at work.

Now that’s a life worth living.

Hilary Lees is a Mental Fitness Expert, Executive and Career Coach, Public Speaker and Trainer who formerly spent twenty years working as an Occupational Therapist in a variety of NHS mental health services. Having worked on the frontline she now has an absolute passion for prevention.

Through her business, The Resilience Consultancy, she helps business leaders build their mental fitness, and develop their soft leadership skills, so they can respond positively to the many challenges they face. Developing this capacity enhances their impact as a leader and results in peak performance, healthy relationships as well as improved wellbeing.

Download her e-book here to learn more about how to overcome the Saboteurs that inhibit your progress towards living your best life.

www.theresilienceconsultancy.com