How can a Personal Retreat Day improve your life? When the day is clearly planned with purpose behind it. For the past 13 years, I’ve been taking one day every month to rest from striving and design the next steps in my journey, and I love to support others who are doing the same.
Lately, everyone I talk to seems to be questioning the stability of their future in this weird era of AI, political turmoil, and general chaos. Are you feeling it too? How can you be ready to pivot to the next job, career, or phase of life? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but let me share some concepts that worked for me in the hopes they will help you, too.
Exactly 13 years ago, on this very date (July 15), a yard sale turned my life upside down. Actually, it wasn’t the yard sale itself but a medical emergency I experienced during the event. I share the details in my upcoming book, but for now use your imagination to paint the scene…
You don’t have to wait for a Personal Retreat Day to hit the “reset” button. We can do this throughout each day as well. I call it the “Power of the Pause.”
It’s been said that we don’t learn from past events, we learn from REFLECTING on those events. I agree! Read on to find out why regular times of reflection are so important in your personal and professional development.
Think of your monthly Personal Retreat Day (PRD) as a “container” filled with deep rest, time to reflect on the previous 30 days, and a chance to reorient towards the month ahead. All 3 “R’s” are important, but REST is the vital ingredient. Rest permeates the container of the day.
We’re trying our best to protect time for personal development, yet we lose it to circumstances seemingly beyond our control. Here are three tried-and-true ways I’ve found to help you really unplug so you can focus on yourself during your Personal Retreat Day.
Crossroads moments are the times when we find ourselves facing the unknown. Graduating from high school or college. A new relationship. A loss of a job. A divorce. An empty nest. A job offer. A death of a loved one. These moments can cause temporary decision paralysis. What should we do? What’s the right choice to make? What’s next?
We need to build in rhythms of rest so we can process our emotions, so that our minds, bodies, and spirits can heal.
Have you been slacking off from your commitment to self-care? Adding some accountability may give you the nudge you need to get back on track!
I get a lot of feedback from people who tell me they feel guilty whenever they take a PRD. When I ask why, they admit that intellectually, they know that self-care isn’t selfish, but they struggle with guilty feelings just the same. Can you relate?
As humans, we have this amazing ability to time travel in our minds. With our memories we can travel back in time to the past, and with our imaginations we can jump to the future. We actually spend a lot of mental time either in the past or the future, don’t we? But it’s not always positive. A quote attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu
Vacations are awesome. I have a long weekend planned in March with my husband. But as wonderful as these special trips are, they don’t replace my monthly PRD. What makes a Personal Retreat Day different from a plain ol’ self-care day or a day off from work?
If you’ve been around for a while, you know I’m a huge fan of Greg McKeown’s bestseller, Essentialism. The subtitle of the book previews the main premise: “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.”
I just read a book that made me stand up and shout “hallelujah!” It’s called Bored to Brilliant by Manoush Zomorod, and it’s all about the results of her experiment to help people unplug from their phones and “space out” with daily tech-free challenges. Her research illustrates how we’re losing both the ability to focus, as well as letting our minds wander creatively, because we’re constantly
