How to Protect the Most Important Asset in your Business

While there are a ton of key ingredients to your business that are worth protecting, there’s one that’s truly irreplaceable…

It’s you.

Knowing that, believing that, what are you doing to safeguard yourself? What are you doing to preserve your energy, your creativity, your mental well-being… basically everything you need to make the magic you make happen each and every day?

In today’s new post, I’m showing you how you can achieve MORE in your business by actually doing LESS.

Read on to see why I make time to intentionally step back and how that leads to innovation, progress, and massive breakthroughs in my own business - and how you can do the same.

If you’re a fellow Type A entrepreneur who struggles to take a break without the burden of guilt, then this post is especially for you.

Allowing myself to rest + rejuvenate

If you follow this blog + podcast regularly, you may have noticed that I missed an episode/post last week. This was an intentional break I created for myself from my business, because it was that time for me where I was really tuning inward and allowing myself to rest and rejuvenate.

Two weeks ago, I talked about how your flow/cycle and the moon’s cycle can impact your business, and how if you choose to let them empower you energetically, there are different phases in your business where it's best to do different things. And my break last week was honoring that for myself. If you go to my Instagram, you'll actually see my carousel post where I outlined what you can be doing during each phase, if you’d like to learn more.

Over the past week or so, I've really given myself the space to step away from my business. I missed the podcast recording for last week, and I haven't posted on social media; I've just taken a mind break. And as a result, I'm in a very inspired place at the moment. That break has allowed me to return to work rejuvenated, with exciting new content and even better ways to help you.

When was the last time you took a break from your business?

I’m not just talking about a coffee break - I’m wondering when you last took a real break… a real break where you didn’t respond to emails, where you didn’t have meetings, where you didn’t do work at all.

This is one of the hardest things for type A entrepreneurs to do. We want to achieve more, do more, work towards MORE in our businesses. A break often leads to feeling overwhelmed by guilt because it feels like doing LESS. But the truth is that in order to innovate, you need time + space to clear your mind. And that doesn't just happen in your daily routine. It doesn't just happen when you're working 40-80 hours a week. When you’re in that zone, you're stuck in the mindset of doing and achieving the next thing right in front of you. To see the bigger picture, we’ve got to zoom out and take a step away from the day to day.

The power of making a plan, and frequently reassessing it

Most entrepreneurs I know make a plan at the beginning of the year, or the end of the year, for the following year. And then they don't revisit that plan until the following year.

Some of the really good entrepreneurs I know revisit their plan twice a year. And the best entrepreneurs I know revisit their plan quarterly, if not monthly. But revisiting the plan is not just about taking a look at it and remembering where you want to go.

Revisiting the plan, in the most effective way requires taking a step away from what you've been doing in the day to day to actually look at where you're at IN the plan, assessing what's working, what's not working, and then rejuvenating yourself so you can come back to your desk with a greater sense of purpose, creativity, focus, and perspective.

But how do you do that if you're stuck doing all of the day to day tasks, constantly?

Changing your mindset about taking a break

First off, you need to stop feeling guilty for taking a day off or time away from your business. The best way to combat guilt is to fully embody the fact that when you're working ON your business (particularly, yourself!), you are making the most progress.

Here are some benefits that naturally come out of taking a break:

1. Healthy breaks lead to greater creativity. When you get out of your routine and clear your mind, it allows you to open yourself up to breakthroughs.

2. Taking a break sets a positive example for your team. By showing your team that breaks are not only ok, but welcomed, it increases morale.

3. Breaks improve our mental health. Taking time off allows you to recalibrate and rest, leading to a return to work in a more grounded state of mind.

4. A break leads to greater productivity. When people don’t take breaks, they get burnt out. Burn out leads to adrenal fatigue, cortisol issues, and other physical ailments that hurt, not help, overall productivity.

You are your business' most important asset. And thus, it’s essential that you take time to regulate yourself. You need to put yourself first. It’s just that simple.

Ideas for how + where to take a break from your business

The best breaks are ones that are specific to what makes YOU feel most excited. This can be anything from:

• Spa days

• Library days to read non-business books

• Visiting a museum

• Mountain climbing

• Kayaking

• Relaxing time in nature

• Guided retreats

There are so many things you can do to get away - the list is endless.

I often recommend people go on retreats because if the retreat organizer has a method to cultivate space for you with the intention of rejuvenating you for your return, it will help guide you so that you're not actually thinking about holding your own container, and trying to create these breakthrough moments on your own.

Guided retreats allow you to relax more and come into your own fresh perspectives because that space is being held for you. On my Sage Your Soul retreat, I have a four step method that I use to help the members of the retreat go from releasing old and repetitive stories that have been holding them back to redesigning a new path forward. We renew the mind, body, and spirit because it’s important to be able to perform at your best holistically. We also focus on rejoicing, because it’s so valuable to celebrate not just the breakthroughs you’ve experienced while on retreat, but also all of the missed celebrations from the year that you may not have made the time to appreciate fully when you were stuck in go-go-go mode.

I’ve found that it's hard to cultivate this space for yourself, which is why I started hosting these retreats. When you step into a container with other people who want you to succeed, there’s a bond that’s created that feels incredibly supportive.

Wrapping Up

Every time I have gone away and taken a step away from my business, I have returned with the ability to innovate in the most amazing ways.

When you shake things up a bit, go against your routine, and stop doing the same things you've been doing every single day, you begin to break the pattern so that you can see things from a new perspective. Plus, the cool thing is, when you return, you have this new, rejuvenated feeling about your business. You know how they say in love “absence makes the heart grow fonder”? Well, it's true in business, too. When you step away, if you're doing the thing that you're passionate about, you're excited to return - more so that if you’d just kept doing what you were doing every single day.

Sage your Soul retreats

Want to take a break from your business to create breakthroughs?

If the Sage your Soul retreat is calling your name, then please do apply for our next retreat.

It is a very special and intimate container that I'll be hosting again next year, and I’d love to have you join us.