Relaxing Into Effort

We have had quite a month around here!  Sara and I have both been so busy serving clients that we haven’t had our usual times to connect with each other, to step back and look at the business, and to move new initiatives forward.  Frankly, it’s begun to make us a little cranky!  It’s so interesting to me that the higher on the balance-and-consciousness scale we move, the more sensitive our systems are.  Often, clients at large corporations who are obviously (to us) depleted and flirting with burnout will deny they’re anything but ‘a little busy.’  But we, who have designed our work weeks to include Nia class for Sara, yoga for Michele, massages, acupuncture, pedicures, and healthy lunches, notice right away when our schedules get tight or our “white space,” as we call that crucial time when the best ideas come, gets crowded out.  It turns out, the more you raise your standards, the more aware you are when they’re trampled.  So we’re doing better than ever at taking care of ourselves while we take care of business, but we’re more aware than ever of the places we fall short.

What we came up with today (over one of those healthy lunches, but after we’d reviewed the PowerPoint for tomorrow’s all-day event) was the recognition that we need to relax into the hard work we’re doing.  Yes, we’re busy. Yes, it requires effort. But if we’ve learned anything from yoga and Nia, it’s that full effort requires that we relax into it.  Doing as little as possible, while completely going for it, isn’t a contradiction in terms.  Instead, it’s the prerequisite to peak performance.  So here we go:  This afternoon and tomorrow, we’re fully engaged, moving fast, but relaxing into that effort.