Taking a break

Taking some time off may actually be the best thing/what you need to move forward.

Sometimes things go wrong, or you get overwhelmed, and you begin to feel like nothing is working and you're failing at everything. It might be at this moment that certain things take a back seat, things that you wish you were still doing or achieving. At this point you may feel like a failure, but I've come to realise that this break might be exactly what you needed in the first place. I call this period 'resting'.

Now resting may feel like a failure.

It isn't. 

Resting is a chance to refresh your mindset, realign with what your goals are and why you were striving for them in the first place. It's no good pointlessly grasping for a position in your job, a grade at school, a relationship that seems distant, if there is no purpose or reason behind why you are doing it. It is essential to sit back and re-examine why you wanted this 'thing' in the first place. 

Is it really this that you wanted? Or is there a reason it has taken a back seat? 

 It is so easy to lose your way when working towards something. Our brains get clouded by the other stuff life throws at you and sometimes health and spending time with loved ones or by yourself is more important. There isn't an expiration date on your goals, you can achieve them whenever you set your mind to it. So there is no harm in resting, everything doesn't always have to continue moving at 378 mph all the time.

Learn to rest. And be okay with that. 

And when the time comes that you're ready to begin again, with a fresh mindset and clear focus, there is no time like the present. So begin again, and begin again, and begin a third time for all it matters, because surely all that life is for is testing what works, and being okay with being tired.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying quit everything as soon as small things go wrong, because I'm a strong advocate for sticking through hard times and developing through them. All I'm saying is that we're only human, we all need rest. Just like we need to sleep at night in order to not spill our morning cup of tea down us every day (although some of us still do). 

Where am I coming from?

I had given up on this blog for a while, I started getting too paranoid about who was reading it, what people thought, what's the point if no one's going to read it. And then I got bogged down in life's 'other plans' and had the summer of a lifetime and everything else got in the way. There becomes a point where you have to sit down and actually ask yourself and make a vow to yourself to fit certain things into your life, because if you want them and they make you happy, then what is stopping you? I love to write, and I love writing about things that hopefully can help someone. If I speak to just one person in each article I write then I will be content. Now I am certainly not saying that I will be consistent from now on with posting, or that I will have the best content, sometimes I might ramble or go off topic but I am proud that I've come back on here, set up my new website and am trying again. 

So that's the last point I want to make, I think we should be proud of ourselves for resting. There's this stigma around giving up, failing or quitting. But really, I think that resting is you knowing yourself enough to know that what you are doing isn't working for you at the moment, and there is no problem with that.