I continuously make micro-optimizations to improve my energy, mindset, and production capacity. Despite my best efforts, I’m not immune to getting caught in a slump. My line of progress typically resembles an erratic zig-zag drawn by a child, and it’s tempting to be frustrated by the setbacks. The discouragement of finding myself in yet another rut is easier to overcome when I acknowledge peaks and valleys are inevitable in the path of progress. Progress is easier to observe with a panoramic view than with a microscope.
My husband recently began pilot training, and I enjoy watching his training in a flight tracker app. The flight path is rarely a straight line to the destination, but rather a series of tiny, constant course corrections from point A to B. However, when you look at the overview of a completed flight, you’d never guess how many adjustments were made during the journey. With this progress-over-perfection perspective, we can focus on making necessary adjustments quickly rather than allowing them to push us too far off course or halt progress completely. As soon as I realize I’m in a rut, my focus shifts to optimizing three areas: Energy Restoration, Rest Recovery, and Breach Repair.
Today’s ideas will be personalized. My list will likely vary from yours. I encourage you to capture the list in a journal or notes app, so it’s accessible when it’s time to course correct.
Energy Restoration
During seasons of stress, the fun and play in our lives is often the first cut we make in the schedule. Neglecting the activities that inject joyful play and fun into our lives compromises our energy when we need it most. Which activities fill your cup? Which activities drain your energy? It’s tempting to mindlessly reach for our phones when motivation is low, but this rarely provides the boost we need. Let go of the judgment and use mindful curiosity to notice if you feel energized or lethargic after certain habitual activities.
A few of my energy boosters are: enjoying fresh air and sunshine on a walk, grabbing a coffee or lunch with a friend, listening to encouraging audiobooks, and playing upbeat music while knocking out mundane tasks. My energy drains are Pinterest scrolling, political news, and remaining stationary for over an hour. I keep a notecard in my planner with my mood boosters when I need an easy reminder of how to turn around a “bad” day. Identify what restores your energy and protect time for those fun, engaging activities.
Rest Recovery
Do you know what rest and recovery looks like for you? Let’s start with the obvious. How much sleep do you need to function optimally? If you don’t know your target, assume it’s somewhere between 7.5 to 8.5 hours. You will probably need close to 9 hours in bed to hit your optimal sleep target. Environmental and lifestyle factors such as light, noise, temperature, and food/drink/media consumption can also influence sleep quality. My optimal sleep target is 7.5 hours of quality sleep. I start my wind-down routine by 8:00 most nights so I can be in bed by 8:30, turn off the lights at 9:00 pm, and rise between 4:30 and 5:00 am without an alarm.
Now let’s address breaks, pauses, and naps. Powering through a sixteen-hour day with no rest is rarely an effective strategy. We glorify “busy” as a badge of honor to the detriment of our production capacity, relationships, and health. For anyone who relinquishes their busy badge, the results are clear. We can accomplish more if we plan for blocks of rest and recovery. You may notice some overlap between your Energy Restoration and Rest Recovery lists. For our purposes, restoration creates energy and joyful fun, whereas recovery creates calm and inner peace. How do you make room for rest in your mind and spirit? How do you practically allow your body to rest? My rest recovery list includes reading a book on the porch, weeding and watering my garden, and enjoying a quick couch nap. The most positively impactful thing you can do for your production capacity today is probably planning (and enjoying) your rest recovery time.
Breach Repair
A breach repair is needed when we’ve allowed too much clutter or junk in the form of habits, commitments, relationships, and stuff to distort our healthy boundaries. We must use wisdom to eliminate or reduce what consistently undermines the fulfillment of our potential. One simple thing I eliminated years ago was investigative crime shows and the daily news. As an empathetic person, watching a fictional or actual storyline of people committing atrocities against other people for “entertainment” was creating a constant, unnecessary stream of stress in my life. I noticed an immediate peace when I replaced those stressful inputs with positive and uplifting media.
Junk is easy to eliminate, but the second category requires time and effort to maintain healthy boundaries to prevent the stuff we enjoy and value from becoming clutter. Most of us have experienced crossing the boundary of too much of a good thing. When we started losing chunks of our evenings, my husband and I experimented with eliminating television. After a few months, we realized we enjoyed watching a movie on date night or shows on a rainy day, so we reincorporated it with new boundaries. Our television remains unplugged when not in use with the remote stored away. We discovered the extra setup created a pause to help us be more intentional with our attention. This intentionality created the freedom to enjoy television without mindlessly losing every evening to it.
What junk needs to be eliminated from your life? What do you need to maintain and manage wisely to prevent it from becoming clutter?
Inevitable Ruts
Jeep four-wheeling is a beloved Southern pastime and can teach us great life lessons if we pay attention. After a good rain on the trail, the only way forward is usually through deep muddy ruts that can be difficult to navigate. When we’re in a rut, it’s usually not in our best interest to slam, snatch, or let off. In offroading vernacular that means applying too much gas will cause the tires to lose traction and spin, overcorrecting the steering wheel will cause the loss of directional control, or getting “slideways” as we call it, and hitting the brakes will cause the loss of momentum which is nearly impossible to recover when bogged down. Sometimes despite best efforts and through no fault of our own, we’ll still need to winch out, which means we’ll need the right recovery gear, an experienced trail guide, or both.
The point is that ruts are inevitable, so a well-executed restoration, recovery, and repair plan is essential. What’s on your list?
Faith Encouragement:
Energy Restoration
- Make a list of activities that energize you. Prioritize time to enjoy these, especially when energy and motivation are low. Life is meant to be enjoyed!
- Ecclesiastes 5:18 – This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot.
Rest Recovery
- Make a list of activities that create peaceful calm. When will you incorporate these moments of stillness for your mind and body? Create a flexible, natural flow between work and rest.
- Mark 2:27 – Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Breach Repair
- Is there any junk in your life distracting you from what’s most important that needs to be eliminated? Is there any clutter that requires more management, maintenance, or boundaries to enjoy? Always keep the main thing as the main thing.
- Matthew 6:33 – But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
