Hey, this is one of my favorite topics and I know I say that about a lot of things, but this is really one of my favorite topics. Why? Because it's about time off!
It's about not working, it's about enjoying success… something I don't think we do enough of. So I really want to have you consider the idea of intermittent rewards. It’s summer, it's beautiful outside, I was at the beach this past weekend, it was gorgeous and I can't wait to get back, but one of the things that we've kinda culturally trained ourselves to do is to believe that rewards/vacations really only come in those one week or two week time periods where the boss says “you can go away and I won't be upset with you.”
We kind of trained ourselves that once every 52 weeks, we're given that privilege to refresh, unwind, re-energize ourselves, and go back to the salt mine for another 52 weeks.
Well between you and me, I think that sucks and I'm here to tell you don't do it.
Don't tell your boss you're watching this Fast Tip Friday, but I hope he sees it or she sees it too. I think you should think about rewarding yourself regularly in little incremental things. This gives you the belief that if I do good work consistently, I don't have to wait forever for the reward…. you get a paycheck once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, and that's cool and that's the business agreement that we created with our employer, or if you're self employed with yourself, but I think what you've got to do is find those moments to take one day or one hour to reward yourself for doing the things that lead to success that don't necessarily depend upon success for you to say way to go, you earned this moment of freedom.
I like people seeing the opportunity once a week to take an hour on a Tuesday, a Wednesday a Thursday, or early on a Friday, that if you've done enough prospecting, if you've cleaned up your your pipeline, if you've gotten all your organizational paperwork done for the boss, I think you should be able to cut out on a Friday and go hit a bucket of balls, or go sit in the park and eat your favorite flavor of ice cream. I think when we know that I can earn that freedom, we can stay focused in that shorter five day period that most of us really run our lives on, we don't have to wait for that one or two week I can't wait for this vacation, I need it desperately.
I like to look at the short term, low volume but high impact moments as the opportunity to keep yourself motivated, to train yourself to do the right things that lead to success that don't require you to wait for that success to actually happen.
I just want you to look at this like it is a milk bone, this is something I give to my crazy little dog Ellie. I reward Ellie every time we come in from a walk, when she goes to the bathroom where she's supposed to go to the bathroom, Ellie lives for this milk bone, and so I want you all to figure out what your milk bone is, what your one hour or one day is that will keep you on track when you feel like saying “what the hell am I doing this for?”
I want you to just think about Ellie and this little biscuit. Take care, happy Friday, reward yourself this weekend, see you later!
