Welcome back to another #ThoughtFULLThursday. My name is Casey Hasten. I am an Executive Recruiter, Director of Recruiting with VIP and your #hiringguru. My goal each week is to bring you tips and tricks for building better teams.
This week I want to share a very important aspect of building a better team; building a better you Mr. & Mrs. Leader! If you are not constantly working on yourself, you will eventually run out of steam to lead your team. I want to break this down into three categories, but only focus on one in this blog:
- Personal Development
- Professional Development
- Self-care
I am going to focus on self-care in this blog, as this is a lesson I have recently been reminded. I had great plans for the extra time off during the long holiday weekend. After spending time with my family on Thanksgiving day, I planned to write like crazy, catch up on my reading so I could write a #bookworm blog, and do some extra meditating. I had a radio tour scheduled with Fox News Radio early Friday morning, but after that, time was mine.
After completing my last interview at 10 a.m., I was excited to have the entire day ahead of me to accomplish my goals. Yet I found myself very unmotivated and ended up not accomplishing a single task I had planned. I decided not to set my alarm for the following morning and allow my body to get all the sleep it needed to recharge. I slept for 12 hours solid! Obviously, I needed some rest.
I recently toured a unique facility that monitors how people respond to ads and product placement by monitoring their brain waves. By doing this, they are able to see what aspects trigger the potential customers and adjust their marketing accordingly. Fascinating! While visiting Michelle Adams, Founder and CEO of Marketing Brainology, she corroborated what I had been reading regarding the importance of sleep. She studies people’s brain waves day in and day out, including her own. While working in corporate America, she confessed she often operated on minimal sleep. After seeing the effects lack of sleep has on the brain, she now makes getting an average of seven to eight hours of sleep a night her priority.
Even knowing all of this, I was still mad at myself for not taking advantage of the extra time during the holiday weekend. Then, as if someone were speaking directly to me, my quote for the day in my journal appeared.
“Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is relax.” – Mark Black
WOW.
I am part of a women’s network called the Go-Go Girls. We are aptly named as we are all always on the go and it is hard to get us all together. Although I take pride in the amount of personal and professional development, networking, and day-to-day work I do, I need to give myself permission to slow down and recharge from time to time.
I know my mind and body were forcing me to relax. Instead of being mad at wasting time, I now see this time as a gift of relaxation. I am going to embrace that I have had this time to relax and gain the extra sleep I needed to recharge my mind and body.
I returned to the office with a renewed enthusiasm and ready to continue building a better team. I am back to my usual crazy schedule, but feel much better equipped to handle the busy upcoming weeks.
I challenge all you Go-Go’s out there to TAKE A BREAK! Show yourself some love by relaxing when your body tells you it is time with thankfulness. You will be amazed at your production level after a recharge!
