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Creating a Legacy ™

9 Tips to Relax and Recharge

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Within our previous Wisdom Note, we explored part three of our three-part series Wandering in the Wilderness by Faith. If you miss any of our Wisdom Notes please visit the blog to read past newsletters.

In today’s trek, we will explore 9 tips to relax and recharge. Most of us realize that regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness. The question is, if we know that, why don’t we make it a priority in our lives. I certainly am pointing my finger at myself on this one, so let us digest these nuggets of insight together. Here are some techniques for relaxing that are used by the most successful people in our fast-paced society of the western world.

1. Take Time Off Every Week

First of all, work only five or six days per week, and rest completely on the seventh day. Every single study in this area shows that you will be far more productive in the five or six days that you work if you take one or two days off completely than you ever would be if you worked straight through for seven days. Of course, God was the original designer of this concept as it declares in Genesis 2:1-3, “So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.”

2. Get Your Mind Busy Elsewhere

During this time off, do not catch up on reports, organize your desk, prepare proposals, or do anything else that requires mental effort. Simply let your mind relax completely, and get busy doing things with your family and friends. Maybe work around the house, go for a walk, engage in physical exercise, watch television, go to a movie, or play with your children. Whatever you do, discipline yourself to shut your mental gears off completely for at least one 24-hour period every seven days.

3. Get Away on Mini-Vacations

Take one three-day vacation every three months, and during that time, refrain from doing any work. Do not attempt to catch up on even a few small things. If you do, you keep your mental gears in motion, and you end up neither resting nor properly doing work of any quality.

4. Take Big Chunks of Down Time

Take at least two full weeks off each year during which you do nothing that is work-related. You can either work or relax; you cannot do both. If you attempt to do a little work while you are on vacation, you never give your mental and emotional batteries a chance to recharge. You’ll come back from your vacation just as tired as you were when you left.

5. Give Yourself a Break Today

If you are involved in a difficult client relationship or situation at work that is emotionally draining, discipline yourself to take a complete break from it at least one day per week. Put the concern out of your mind. Refuse to think about it. Don’t continually discuss it, make telephone calls about it, or mull it over in your mind. You cannot perform at your best mentally if you are emotionally preoccupied with a person or situation. You have to give yourself a break.

6. Go For a Walk in Nature

Since a change is as good as a rest, going for a nice long walk is a wonderful way to relax emotionally and mentally. As you put your physical body into motion, your thoughts and feelings seem to relax all by themselves.

7. Eat Lighter Foods

Also, remember that the process of digestion consumes an enormous amount of physical energy. Therefore, if you eat lighter foods, you will feel better and more refreshed afterward. If you eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products, your digestive system will require far less energy to process them.

8. Be Good to Yourself

Since your diet has such an impact on your level of physical energy and through it your levels of mental and emotional energy, the more particular you are about what you put into your mouth, the better you will feel and the more productive you will be. We know now that highly processed foods, carbs, and sugar are not good for your body. The lighter the foods you eat; the more energy you have.

9. Perform Three Action Exercises

Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, plan your weeks in advance and build in at least one day when you will relax from work completely. Discipline yourself to keep this date.

Second, reserve, book, and pay for your three-day vacation several months in advance. Once you’ve paid the money, you are much more likely to go rather than put it off.

Third, decide that you will not work at all during your vacations. When you work, work. And when you rest, rest 100% of the time. This is very important. It is nearly impossible to do both at the same time.

I trust that you see the value and have enjoyed exploring these powerful and yet simple to implement tips that will help you and me to relax and recharge completely. I plan on putting them into practice, what about you?

In our next Wisdom Note, we will hike up an interesting trail to discover the difference between a legacy and inheritance. Encourage your friends and family to also join us on our daily podcast for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life – Part 6

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Different Ways of Thinking

Life is a trek, and we are all in this trek together. Each day as we gain wisdom and insight, let us do all that we can to live life each day so that we are leaving a legacy.

We have stopped by waypoints 1-9 so far, so we only have three more to go.  I encourage you to apply each waypoint to your life so that you can become more wise and successful. Let’s continue on life’s trail until we reach waypoints 10 and 11.

As we ended our previous Wisdom Note, I asked you to consider two more questions:

  1. Am I consciously rejecting the limitations of common thinking in order to accomplish uncommon results?
  2. Am I consistently searching the minds of others to think “over my head” and achieve compounding results?

Consider these questions each day and apply them to your life. This will help you to change your thinking and start down the trail to a changed life. As we are on this trek of life together, one of the most important ways of thinking is found at our 10th waypoint.

10. Practice Unselfish Thinking

Unselfish thinking is beneficial because it enables personal fulfillment, adds value to other people, and increases the quality of your life. When you engage in unselfish thinking, you become part of something greater than yourself. It is only possible to create a long lasting legacy by thinking unselfishly and investing in others. Here are five ways to cultivate the ability to think unselfishly:

  • Put others first. When you think unselfishly you make a commitment, both mentally and emotionally, to look out for others’ interests.
  • Find situations where people have needs. One way to practice unselfish thinking is for you to find situations where people have needs and then do something about it. At first, the kind of giving you provide is not all that important; the goal is for you to learn how to give.
  • Give quietly or anonymously. After learning how to give, you must learn how to give when nothing is provided to you in return. Anonymous giving results in spiritual, mental, and emotional benefits.
  • Invest in people intentionally. Consider different people and their journey, and then work together with them. To possess the characteristics of an unselfish thinker, you must make sure the other person in a relationship wins first.
  • Continually monitor motives. It is in your human nature for you to put yourself first. This is true of everyone. It is important for you to examine your motives to ensure that you are not acting for selfish reasons.

As we look at unselfish thinking, it reminds me of verse 24 of Hebrews 10,“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.” 

Focus Question: “Am I continually considering others and their journey in order to think with maximum mutual aid?”

“When you engage in unselfish thinking, you become part of something greater than yourself.”

11. Rely on Productive Thinking

In your life, being useful and productive determines whether you are succeeding or not. However, money is certainly not the primary measure of success. The primary measure of success is to determine if you are achieving the desired results in your life and if your life is positively impacting the lives of others.

Productive thinking provides clarity by providing a benchmark to measure activity. Decisions also become easier when the desired outcome is determined. Success in the future relies on recognizing if you have been productive today.  No matter what the desired result is for an activity, it can be improved through good thinking that turns ideas and dreams into results. There are five ways that you can learn to become a more productive thinker:

  • Identify the results desired. The results may be large or small objectives. Regardless of the size, the desired results must be as specific as possible.
  • Make the results the measuring point. All activities in your life should be consistent with your values, which should not be compromised.
  • Create a plan to achieve your results. Plans must be designed so that your smaller goals add up to your overall objective for the season of life you are in.
  • Ensure that family and friends help you towards your objectives. Your family, friends, and associates should know and understand what your life values and objectives are and what role they may assist with.
  • Choose a system that will help you with your objectives. The systems and methods in your life must reinforce achievement of your objectives and the results you desire.
Productive thinking helps us to grow in our character as mentioned in Apostle Peter’s 2nd letter in chapter 1 verses 8 and 9, “The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.”

Focus Question: “Do I stay focused on productive thinking so that I can gain the maximum results and reap the full potential of my thinking?” 

We need to learn and then adopt the thinking habits of unselfish and yet productive thinking in our lives. These are traits or habits of wise and successful people. It is not enough just to learn something. We must also put it into practice for it to become effective.