![Episode 344: [CLEAN REST SERIES] Clean Rest Basics + Why It's Essential For Perfectionists](https://samlaurabrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ep-344-blog-edited.jpg)
If you’re sick of being behind in your business (even though you’re doing ALL the things), this episode is for you.
I explain what clean rest is (i.e. resting without guilt) and why it’s essential for perfectionists.
It may not feel like it, but clean rest will help you work better and build a better business (with less overwhelm, less procrastination and less burnout).
You’ll have plenty of clean rest scheduled in your calendar when you’re planning properly as a perfectionist.
All that clean rest won’t be scary because you’ll be so clear on what’s important vs what isn’t, when you work best and how to keep your plans workable so you never fall behind. You’ll be able to ENJOY your time off.
It’s time to start planning properly as a perfectionist – and that includes getting the clean rest you need. And anyone can learn how…
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why you’ve always struggled to rest without feeling guilty
- How clean rest helps you to get MORE done in your business
- Why it’s safe to rest, even if you feel like your business will fall apart if you take time off
PGSD is opening to new students on 27 July 2022:
The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 July and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 2 August 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
Featured In The Episode:
- Join the waitlist for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD) – samlaurabrown.com/pgsd
- Learn the basics of Power Planning – samlaurabrown.com/planning
- Sign up for daily Perfectionist Power-Ups – samlaurabrown.com/power
- Follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject
Listen To The Episode
Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 344 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
Welcome to what is the first episode in this five part series all about clean rest, I have been getting so many requests to go into more detail about clean rest, and what it is how is going to help you release your perfectionism handbrake, where it fits in in terms of planning properly as a perfectionist, like what it looks like in your power planning, how to get more of it, how to feel safe doing it, what it’s like to feel resistance to it, and how to overcome that resistance. And just all the things about clean rest. So I’m really excited to be bringing this series to you.
So that you have a lot of the key concepts relating to clean rest all in one place, so that you can start getting more clean rest, which is going to help you get out of your own way, it’s going to make it easier to be more courageous in your business and to achieve your goals. It’s going to have you enjoying the journey, it’s going to have you be more present in your personal life. And actually feeling like you have a life outside of your business that you love. It’s going to stop you from burning out there are just so many benefits to clean rest, we’re going to be going into that in this series.
And I also want to make sure you know that you are invited to join us inside perfectionist getting shit done, which is where you can practice clean rest and really master it. This really is about not just intellectually understanding the concept of clean rest, which is resting without guilt, it’s intentional non business time, we get that I’m sure you already intellectually understand what it is just from me sharing that if you weren’t familiar with it before. But what does it look like to actually get clean rest and to truly experience the benefits of it that comes with practice.
And I want to invite you into PGSD. So you can practice that with us. Particularly if burnout is something you really struggle with if you have a motivation problem. And you are finding it hard to find the energy and the mental power to do what it is that you need to do. And if you feel like you’re always working, but you’re never getting everything done. And you’re always behind that I really want to invite you in.
So the doors to PGSD will be opening at 6am New York time on the 27th of July. And they will be closing at 11:59pm New York time on the second of August. So enrollment for PGSD will be open for one week. And I want to invite you in and especially if you find this clean rest series helpful. If you have been enjoying the podcast if you know you’re a perfectionist, you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business.
And you really want somewhere to be supported while you do this work and to take it to that deeper level and not just intellectually understand what it is that I talk about on the podcast, but to be living and breathing that that’s what we do inside PGSD. And we would love to have you join us. So you can find out more about PGSD. If you’re not already on the waitlist, I encourage you to sign up Samlaurabrown.com/pgsd The link will be for you in the show notes is where you can join the waitlist. And once the doors are open, that is also where you can sign up.
So if you want to find out more about the program as well, you’re not really sure what it is go to that website and you will find more details there. So before I get into the bulk of this episode, which is going to be really about the concept generally of clean rest, and how I developed that, why it came about what that looks like what that means. I just want to share where clean rest fits in, in terms of releasing your perfectionism handbrake getting into growth mindset.
So let’s just do a quick recap of perfectionism releasing that handbrake get into the growth mindset, like what that means. And that’s gonna give us a context to talk about clean rest, because it’s really important to know that, yes, it’s great to have balance, quote, unquote, and to get rest and to not burn out. But how does this fit in specifically, with you getting out of your own way and with your perfectionism journey?
That’s what I want to make sure you know. So if we think about perfectionism, perfectionism is a strategy to avoid shame. Perfectionist aren’t perfect people, perfectionist of people who feel ashamed that they are not perfect. When we feel ashamed that we are not perfect. We tend to focus on avoiding imperfection. So this manifests typically in five ways. So the signs of perfectionism the five signs are overwhelmed, procrastination, burnouts, all or nothing thinking and fear of judgment.
There’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist. It’s not toxic. It’s not a flaw. It’s none of those things, it’s just a set of beliefs, and our perfectionist tendencies as having all these different ways that we withhold effort because we think effort is a sign of inadequacy. So we don’t want to be seen or have ourselves see that we’re putting in a full effort because it feels so vulnerable, to give it our all and to potentially find out that our best wasn’t good enough.
So we are doing all these different things to avoid showing up fully hence, the overwhelm, the procrastination, burnout, all or nothing thinking, the fear of judgment, those are just strategies that we use to protect ourselves because it doesn’t feel safe to show up imperfectly, but all of those tendencies, are just coming from the thoughts that we’re having today. And yes, we might have had some of those perfectionist thoughts as children, and they definitely served us as children. That is why our brain has those thoughts, because they work in a certain setting. But now as adults, and especially having a business, they don’t serve us anymore.
And it’s so helpful to know that perfectionism those tendencies, that perfectionism handbrake, it’s just coming from the thoughts that you are having today. And you are able to change those thoughts. And if we focus instead, on not being a perfectionist, we focus on getting into the growth of mindset that is going to turn releasing your perfectionism handbrake from something that sounds like a nice thing to do. And all of these mentors about done is better than perfect. From that into something practical, tangible, actionable, and you know, where to focus your energy, and you know what you need to be doing with your time.
So that’s what we do in PGSD, we use the PGSD process to get into a growth mindset. Just a quick recap, as well on the growth mindset. So when we’re in the growth mindsets, we are really living from that place of it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. When we’re in the growth mindset, we are courageous, experimental, we are really thinking about things in a way that we can improve upon our skills, and abilities with practice and effort.
So we’re really seeing effort as something that is worthwhile, and that it’s worth putting effort into things, even if they’re not going to work instantly, because we are developing our skill set. When we are in the perfectionist mindset, which might otherwise be called the fixed mindset. That is when we believe that our talents, our abilities, our intelligence our fix, and that they can’t be changed. And therefore that creates an experience. And we have that belief set, that everything we do is evidence of whether or not we’re good enough.
And that makes us want to protect our potential and do things that we’re only going to be good at. So this is again, where the avoiding imperfection comes in like yes, a lot of perfectionism is about wanting things to be perfect. But that tends to manifest as not doing anything at all, because we can’t have things be perfect, and we want to avoid imperfection. That’s really a lot of what it’s about. So if we think about the growth mindset, again, it’s just a set of beliefs, we are able to have those beliefs, we don’t need to be in those beliefs all the time. In order to get out of our own way.
We just need to have those thoughts and feelings more often. That the PGSD process is the practical way to get yourself into the growth mindset. So that is broken down into three steps. This is what we do inside PGSD. So plan properly as a perfectionist that involves setting your growth goal and using power planning, clean rest as well. When you are doing your power planning you are putting your clean rest in your calendar. I will talk about that more in part, which part is it? Part three of this series, episode 346. I will be talking about planning out your clean rest and what that looks like specifically.
So again, step one, the PGSD process is the process for creating a growth mindset. Plan properly as a perfectionist to get your perfectionist mindset on your side create plans that are easy to follow through on. Follow through with your plans. 80% of the time. Zero procrastination is not the goal we are aiming for 80% follow through. That’s more than enough. We rest without guilt. That’s the third step, clean rest, rest without guilt and repeat. When we are in that process, plan properly, follow through 80% of the time, rest without guilt and repeat. That is how we create a growth mindset.
And when we are in a growth mindset, we are able to experience the success that we want to in our business and actually enjoy the journey and be successful in our business without it meaning something about us which is why we have so much courage and willing to experiment and willing to do things that might not work because we are able to not have our self worth tangled up in the success or otherwise, of our business, that’s an incredible thing. So that is the PGSD process and clean rest, resting without guilt is a third step in that process. This process, as I said, it’s rest without guilt and repeat.
So this is something that we are working through. Like again, and again, if that makes sense. So you’re going to be planning properly, every week, you’ve got your growth goal, which is a 12 month goal, doing your power planning every week, then throughout the week, you’re following through 80% of the time, and you’re resting without guilt. So let’s talk about what is clean rest? I am going to have my poor self tell you about it. Because and this is such a beautiful thing. And I love how when I do these series, my work behind the scenes always aligned with what this series is about. So I recorded an episode on how to rest without feeling guilty in April 2019.
And what I’ve got going on for me personally as well, at the time of recording this. So it is the beginning of June, I am getting married at the end of June at our home. And I am having a lot of clean rest surrounding that. And I wanted to have everything prepared for the launch and for this podcast series, so that my team can have everything and they have plenty of time and they can get their clean rest. So I didn’t have much time on my calendar at all, to create everything for this launch. And I wanted to have it be the most helpful that it could possibly be.
And so what I was thinking about was, well maybe past me who’s already said a lot about clean rest, maybe I could bring that to this series, and share a best of the best episode in the sense that I’m going to be sharing with you concepts around clean rest. And I think particularly as well, hearing past me talk about, it’s gonna be so helpful, because at the time that I recorded that episode, I was working in a part time job, and I was just in a different situation in terms of my life, then than I am now. And so you’re gonna get to hear from both like hear from me before I went full time on my business, about clean rest. And also mean now I’m full time in my business and have been since July 2019.
Hear what it’s like for me now and in the fifth part in this series, I’m going to talk about what I get up to when I’m taking clean rest and how my clean rest practice has evolved and all of that. But I thought what better way to honor my clean rest and how much capacity I have to get my work done. And to have you have an incredibly helpful episode is that I’m going to share that episode with you that I recorded in 2019. So this is going to really help you get an understanding for what clean rest is. And just to really underline because I don’t know if I mentioned it this way in that episode. Clean rest is that’s when we’re resting without guilt.
And I want you to especially just be thinking about clean rest as intentional non business time, it’s time that you have decided, you are not allowed to work on your business. Because when you hear about clean rest, it’s resting without guilt, and you might be thinking, well, I’m resting, but I don’t know if I do feel guilty, or I definitely do feel guilty. So is that clean rest? What counts, what doesn’t count? And we’re going to be covering that as well in the fourth part of this series. What counts what doesn’t.
But what I want you to be thinking about is instead of getting tangled up in this question of is it clean rest if I feel a bit guilty? To think about clean rest is a time that you have decided is not allowed for business work, that you can do whatever, but you’re not doing business stuff. And by taking that opportunity to work on your business off the table, it’s going to make it so much easier not to feel guilty, because we have this thought that what I should be working on my business. And the beauty of business is you can work on it whenever you want.
And also if we don’t learn how to draw a line in the sand for ourselves, then we feel like we should be working on it all the time. And clean rest is one of the ways that you are able to give yourself a mental reprieve from that chatter and to just be like No, I shouldn’t be working on my business right now because it’s clean rest time. And I’m not allowed to and so I want you to just think about clean rest, that’s time you’re deciding is a no go for business stuff. And with that in mind, I will now introduce you to that episode. I hope you find it incredibly helpful.
Today I want to chat to you about how to rest without feeling guilty. Productivity is such a huge thing for perfectionist. We want to feel like no second is going to waste, and yet, we procrastinate a fuck ton. So in this episode, I’m going to be talking about how to rest without guilt. And also just really getting you to see that having every second of the day open for productivity is actually stopping you from being as productive as you can be.
For me, what really got me into this place where I’ve been willing to rest has been really getting that I am so much more productive. I am so much more excited about life, when I actually give myself an opportunity to rest. This is something that I talk to, like basically all of my one on one coaching clients about we work on this at some point.
And in all my courses, we talked about this, it’s such a huge part of growing out of perfectionism, being able to actually schedule in time, to be unproductive to rest to have downtime, and to not feel guilty. A lot of perfectionist want to be productive all the time, and then wonder why it is that they are procrastinating on Netflix. But then it doesn’t even feel good to watch Netflix because you just feel guilty, that you’re not studying or you’re not starting your business or you’re not doing whatever it was you promised yourself that you would do.
So this episode is for you if you can relate to any of that. And that used to be me, I’m really like with every other podcast episode talking from experience, because this was such a huge struggle for me. Previously, and only in the last year, I would say, Have I been really willing to see how my life would look if I did allow myself to rest without guilt and to have that downtime and to really take a look at like where is this need to be productive actually coming from and seeing that it wasn’t coming from the best place.
And I guess that’s where I want to start is perfectionist really want to be productive 24/7 because it’s coming from this place of inadequacy, we believe that we’re not good enough. And so we’re trying to compensate for that by doing more. It’s really this belief. If I do more than I’ll be more. It’s why perfectionist love planners, love being organized, but then at the same time, really struggled to follow through part of that is self sabotage, which I won’t be talking about in this episode.
And when you have your conscious desires being contradicted by your subconscious desires. And usually that’s the subconscious desire to avoid shame, is the one that keeps us really stuck. But in this episode, I’m going to be talking about also the role that rest plays in productivity and achieving your goals and when to actually rest and how to actually have rest without guilt and how to know when it’s just a cop out. Because a lot of us use that excuse I deserve a break even though we don’t really deserve a break.
Like we’re just saying that so that we have an excuse not to follow through on the thing that we had promised ourselves, we would do. It’s like this super sneaky way that we just let ourselves off the hook. We say I deserve to rest and then we feel guilty when we’re resting. And then when we go back to doing the thing it is we’re meant to be doing. We feel like we’re behind and then we just end up in this self pity cycle. I’ve done an episode on that it’s episode 84. I will link it for you in the show notes. I highly recommend listening to that one if you can relate to what I share in this episode.
But for me, I used to believe that I needed to be productive all the damn time. Like I didn’t want a second of the day to not be productive. It felt like a waste of time if I wasn’t doing something productive. Even like I used to feel guilty and horrible when I was doing meal prep instead of working on my blog. Even if I just be doing busy work on my blog. I felt like so inadequate around it that I really had this belief I need every second I can and I was doing meal prep something that would benefit me throughout the entire week and I just saw that as a burden.
Towards, like a burden that was stopping me from achieving my goal of being successful with my blog. And it was not fun to be resenting all of the tasks that were actually in my best interest. And it wasn’t fun to never actually be able to rest and recover and appreciate myself and feel proud of myself. And I was just constantly feeling like I was never doing enough. And because I felt like I was never doing enough, that just made me procrastinate. Because I thought, well, it’s not going to make a difference. I’m never gonna be able to do enough anyway. And so I would be on social media, I’d be watching YouTube videos, again, telling myself like, I deserve a little break.
And I’m just gonna get myself feeling inspired, and covering it up that way. So it kind of felt like what I would call productive procrastination. And again, it’s why so many perfectionist like you might have found me through Pinterest or somewhere like that, because you want to feel productive all the time. But no one can be productive 24/7 and also the pressure to be productive 24/7 is really crippling. So a lot of perfectionist get really good at productive procrastination, you might be researching and gathering things all the time on Pinterest.
Or maybe you are constantly consuming things and telling yourself you need to learn just one more thing before you will be ready to start. So if that’s you, I get it. And with my blog, like a particularly in the early days when I wasn’t really telling anyone about it. And I still felt like I wasn’t good enough to be doing it and had a lot of embarrassment and shame around it. Because I just thought like who am I to be sharing stuff.
And I don’t even know enough to be sharing anything. And like all the doubt, all the worst things you’ve ever thought about yourself. That is what I was thinking about myself during that period. And I had this new, I’ve got to be productive all the time. And for me that just looked like a lot of sitting in front of my computer and being productive as in I was like, If anyone looked at me, it would look like I’m working. But because I haven’t had proper rest, my brain is working more slowly than it could be.
I’m also procrastinating and picking up my phone and looking at things. And especially, I’m doing tasks that don’t even need to be done. I used to be like spending hours and hours on Pinterest graphics. I would be editing blog post that had already been published. And even lately, I had to like catch myself with busy work. And I think constantly like it’s something that a lot of us do, because it feels more comfortable to be productive, like busy work.
Work for work sake is productive procrastination. And so I noticed what I was doing was I was doing the right tasks. I was recording podcast episodes. I’ve spoken about this on a previous episode, but I was recording podcast episodes, writing my email newsletter, like doing all the things that weren’t busy work. But the way I was doing them took up more of my time than if I batch them together. And I used to batch things together, which I’m currently doing right now.
So I’ve recorded three podcast episodes today. This is the third and final one for today. But before I was recording them the day before I needed to publish them. And I did this for maybe like I want to say like 20 or 30 episodes, I was doing them right before. So it would take me longer because I needed to get my podcast set stuff set up. I would need to be at home.
So I couldn’t go to the co working space that day. I need to think of a topic basically it was slow and clunky. Because I had to do each one individually. So busy work might not even be working on a task that isn’t important. It could also be working on a task that is important in a more time intensive overcomplicated kind of way. as well. One of the beliefs that had me doing that was not wanting things to be too easy.
Because if things were easy, then I wouldn’t feel like I deserve success. And that’s just old programming this belief that you have to work hard to be deserving. And that’s something I have been working on rewiring and just really getting that like for me to be the most successful I can be I actually need to be spending time in the tasks that are easiest for me like coaching and recording podcast episodes, and not overcomplicating things like letting it be easy by batching things and being organized and planning and following through.
So just wanted to mention there’s obvious procrastination like Netflix, there is productive procrastination and busy work, like Pinterest, doing research, particularly if you’ve been researching something for more than an hour, like you’re well into the productive procrastination at that point, it doesn’t really take long to find adequate information to get started. But also, you might just be doing things that are important, but you’re doing them in a really sloppy, haphazard last minute kind of way.
And that’s filling up your time, so that you get to feel productive all the time, without actually really doing things in the best way possible. So I really want you to see that, I would say 99% of the time, perfectionist want to be productive. And like a really big aim like something if you’re on Pinterest you might be researching is how to be productive, how to stay motivated, that kind of line of thinking. But then you procrastinate.
And even though you have these really great intentions with productivity, you aren’t able to follow through, you start things you don’t finish, and you just go down the rabbit hole shiny object syndrome, you have all of these ideas, and you tell yourself well, yeah, you know, I wouldn’t have such a problem if I didn’t have all these great ideas, which I hear a lot of people say, and people like most people have a lot of ideas. And I really believe that that isn’t a burden. It’s just something to learn, okay, well, I’m going to have a lot of ideas, I just need to make sure I don’t try and follow through on them and use that as an excuse.
I could go on and on about that side of things, and all the different ways that we self sabotage. But what I really just wanted to get out is that when we’re trying to be productive 24/7, we’re actually not productive at all. And often, we’re less productive than if we had half the time for anything. Like, even if it’s for cleaning for doing life admin stuff, if you decide to do it, and you’re very intentional about it, and you just get it done. It’s so much quicker, that when we approach life, in this, I’ve got to be productive frenzy. And we aren’t able to actually be focused, do one thing at a time, get it done, move on to the next thing.
And so for me, I really used to be coming from this place of inadequacy. And there was a lot of fear around not being productive, that if I wasn’t achieving my arbitrary goals that I’d made for myself, if I wasn’t busy all the time, perfectionist love feeling busy another way that we get in our own ways by putting like 50 commitments on our plate, so that if we fail at one of them, we never have to feel that full force of the failure because we can say, I was so busy with all of these other things.
That yeah, I didn’t do as well my business because I’m really trying to focus on this relationship. And that relationship isn’t going as good as it could because I’m at the gym all the time. However, that looks for you. But I had this real fear of what would happen if I wasn’t able to be productive. And that’s kind of like where the guilt came in.
And this idea that if I’m not productive all the time, there’s no way I can be successful. And if I’m not successful, then I’m gonna feel ashamed of myself. And it was not fun. And even when I was doing well, productivity wise, which was rare. It still wasn’t fun, because nothing was ever enough and perfectionist never feel good enough, no matter what they achieved. It’s the reason I teach how to get into a growth mindset. And episode 100 was about the five biggest mistakes perfectionist make with mindset, with the growth mindset.
So if you haven’t listened to that, make sure you listen to that one after this as well, I think you’ll find it really helpful. But it can really just come from this place of inadequacy and this fear that if I stop being as productive, then I won’t be successful. But again, when we have that pressure to be productive 24/7 we just end up procrastinating and doing busy work and not actually living up to our potential anyway. What I’m trying to say is to let go of this need to be productive 24/7, you’re not actually letting go of a great amount of productivity, you’ve probably just been busy without actually creating that many results in your life.
So what I did have done for the last two weeks, for the first week, I was in Bali on the manifestation babe retreat, and I talk more about that in episode 99. And then when I got home I had a week off my business I was still going to my part time job in the afternoons from 4pm to 8pm. But besides that I was just doing home projects hanging out with Steve, chilling, doing whatever. And before that would have freaked the shit out of me because I needed to have every second I could on my business would fail.
But in the last year or so I’ve really started experimenting with having time off, honoring my time off and really seeing that as being a really productive thing that I can do. And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you will have heard me talk about different iterations I’ve gone through with this. For quarter two of this year, I’m having Saturdays as my day off, even if it’s the craziest week in my business, I have Saturday’s off. That means no blogging, no podcasting, no coaching clients, no Instagram posts, no email, nothing, nothing on a Saturday.
And that makes me be so much more productive with my time previously, like in the first quarter of this year. And at the beginning of this year, I really reinstated my day off because I gotten sloppy with it. And then I noticed that I just was feeling like, not as excited about things because there was no downtime, there was no end in sight. And even though I love my business, like my brain needs a second to recover.
And even though my day off, I think about my business all day anyway, like, that’s just what my brain like thinking about. I still need a moment to like, be me outside of my business to really see that I am valuable, regardless of how much money I’m making, how many followers I have, how many people on my email list, how many DMS I’m getting like none of that actually really says anything about me.
And it’s so powerful to have time where you can create an identity for yourself. That’s not related to the results that you’re achieving in your life. And I was seeing that really like my business and me would like the same thing. And I didn’t have that identity. And I didn’t know what I liked to do outside of business. And yes, like, it’s great that I love my business. But I need to have other things that I like doing. I need to have more than that.
So that I don’t have my like, I’m not then hooked on to how the business is going in terms of my own self esteem and my own identity. I need to be Sam and then yes, I’m here on the podcast as Sam Laura Brown. But I just need to be just plain old Sam just for me doing things that don’t get documented and don’t get shared. And no one knows about like, I just need to have a part of me that’s just for me and have that time to explore like What else am I interested in? What else might I like to pursue? So I reinstated that for the first quarter of this year, I had Sunday off, which was really good. But Steve works every single Sunday.
And so I never got to hang out with him on my day off. So now it’s Saturday because he has every second Saturday off if you don’t know what Steve does, he’s a paramedic and an emergency nurse. He has two different jobs. So he works as a paramedic on the weekends. And I would love to see him on some of my days off. So and just have a sleeping together and just chill. So that’s why my day off now is Saturday for this quarter. I’m just experimenting with it. And we’ll see how it goes and how it fits in with everything. And I’m always open to changing that in the future.
Anyway, have I made a point yet in this podcast episode? I’m not sure. But what I’m trying to say is that I had two weeks off, in previously, I would have made that mean my business is going to fail. I’m going to be falling behind. And I would just have like, I wouldn’t even be able to articulate it just this sense of like, shit gonna go bad. And I need to be there every second.
And it’s so powerful. I’ve done this lots of different times we just seem like the world keeps spinning. Like that’s something I tell myself quite often like, it just kind of gives me the sense of calm like the world will keep spinning. If I miss this deadline, the world will keep spinning if this happens the world will keep spinning if that happens the world will keep spinning like it just reminds me that it’s not a big fucking deal. And I find it really calming to just have that thought to ground me.
And so I did prepare podcast episode so that while I was away, those two weeks that I will be showing up here on the podcast. But I emailed my email subscribers and said, Hey, I’m not going to be emailing you for a couple of weeks. Because this is so important. I want to be an example of what I teach. And I teach that rest is important. And I teach that doing your own personal development work is important. So I really wanted to let you guys know that, like I could have automated everything.
So you wouldn’t have known that I was even in Bali, so that everything would just look like I was at home, hustling away. But I really want to teach that rest is important. And you can take a step back and everything will keep spinning, the world will keep spinning, your business can keep growing while you are resting. And I did that, and I said to my email list, hey, I’m not going to be emailing you. I’m having a break, I’m practicing what I preach, I’m doing my own personal development work, I’m having a rest.
And also, people probably wouldn’t have noticed, unless I had said, Hey, I’m having two weeks off. And even though that might sound a bit sad that maybe no one would notice. But I find it so liberating, because it just takes that pressure off me to have everything be a certain way all the time, and to just allow myself to be human and to have a real human experience. And to be an example of someone who is growing their business and making an impact, but has a week off.
And my plan is to have the last week of every quarter off. So that’d be the last week of June, which is actually when my anniversary with Steve is. And then the last week of September, and no last week of the year. And I’m just calling that out as like this is time off non negotiable. Even if I have nothing to do, and I’m sitting at home, twiddling my thumbs. I’m not doing any business work, I am having that week off. I’m having that space for myself.
So my recommendation, if you are currently feeling very attached to being productive all the time, my biggest advice to you is to start putting in just one small boundary about when you aren’t allowed to be productive. So I did this, like I started experimenting with this when I was still studying, I did law and finance dual degree. And I mean, everyone was always saying like, wow, you must be having to do a lot of study. And so it kind of fed into that need as well to be productive all the time slash looking busy feeling busy.
But I noticed that when study was an option 24/7 it meant that when I was chilling, or when I was at a friend’s place, or with family, or at my job, that I always felt guilty, because study was always an option. So what I did, and I did this, for one of the Summers was I committed to and this is like a really old blog post on my blog. I’ll link it in the show notes if anyone wants to read it. But I committed to I wanted to go to the beach every weekend, I live about an hour away from the Gold Coast in the Sunshine Coast. And we have so many beautiful beaches here.
And I had noticed that I barely had gone to the beach at all, and I love the beach. So I committed to myself that I was gonna go to the beach every single weekend, even if it was by myself, which I have no issue with doing that. But even if it was only for like me to be there for an hour, so I drive an hour just to stay for an hour and then drive an hour home, which was great because I love audiobooks.
And I then had to do all of my study throughout the week. And it was just not an option to study on the weekend. And I had to get everything done throughout the week. And what it meant was that I had to be more productive. I didn’t have the time anymore to procrastinate and there was this clear end in sight where my brain could get this reprieve and could have this rest. So I got so much more productive.
I studied so much more like I was actually so much more engaged by forcing myself to have less time. And I spoke about this in Episode 99. But that’s what I’m experimenting with this upcoming quarter from April to the end of June, with actually decreasing my work hours, to being no more than four hours per day, this is excluding Sundays, when I’ll be on my coaching calls and doing podcast episodes. But when I’m in the co working space, I’m going to be doing three hours of active personal development. And then the rest of the time will be work. And I’m making that smaller because it was initially six hours, I’m making it smaller, so that I have to be more intentional with that time.
And I have to really prioritize, and I have to really plan it, because I don’t have enough time to be sloppy with it. So if you have this 24/7 everything’s on the table, everything’s an option kind of approach. It’s so easy to be sloppy with time. And you might have found this where you have a lot of time in your day, like, Yeah, I’m gonna go to the gym, but you never actually decide when you’re going to go and you’re like, I’ll go after breakfast, and I don’t feel like it. I’ll go after lunch.
Actually, I’ll go before dinner. Now it’s dinner, I’ll go after dinner. Oh, wait, it’s too late. Like, sometimes when we have the most time, that’s when we can be so sloppy with it. And I’ve always found that I’m the most productive when I have the least amount of time to get things done. It’s Parkinson’s Law, the time it takes to do something expands to the time we have to do it. And the same with contracting, if we have less time to get something done, we will be able to do it in less time.
So that’s the approach that I’m taking. But for me, something I’m really focusing on, is having Saturday off, that’s non negotiable. And then I’m in that personal development time. I’m going to link an episode that Brooke Castillo shared about super thinking. But I’m actually going to be asking my brain better questions instead of just always been on autopilot mode. And continuing with my same thoughts and doing things in the same way. Like, yes, some of that time, we’ll be watching Netflix with Steve and chilling and doing whatever.
But then some of that time as well, the personal development time, I’m going to be doing personal development work, including what Brooke calls super thinking, which is basically asking your brain better questions, really evaluating your life and bringing your mindset up to the next level. I haven’t explained that very well, but she explains it really well in her podcast episode. So I will link that for you as well in the show notes. But I’m really trying to say here, this episode, rest is so incredibly important. And if you’re like looking for productivity tips, you’re trying to figure out why is it that I can’t follow through? Why is it that I always feel guilty when I rest, then I really have just one action step for you today.
And that’s to carve out one little pocket of time in the week, just one, teeny, tiny that it’s completely off the table to do whatever that thing is you normally feel guilty about whether that’s working in your business, working on your blog, studying, cleaning, I don’t care, whatever it is that you’re like, I should be doing that maybe it’s even reading, maybe it’s meditating, maybe you’ve turned all of those fun personal development things into a chore.
Just whatever you feel guilty about. Typically, when you’re resting, I want you to just have a little pocket of time. If it feels uncomfortable, that means you’re doing it right. Let’s have this pocket of time where you’re not allowed to do anything productive. And this isn’t especially important. If you don’t believe you have enough time to do it. If you believe you don’t have a recommended minimum one hour, but ideally, I’d like you to look at half a day if you could even a full day like I do. Like we have to draw the line in the sand for ourselves because no one else is going to do that.
Particularly I know so many of you listening to this are entrepreneurs or you want to be no one tells us when the day is over. So we have to draw that line for ourselves. And if we don’t, then we run our brain down because we’re constantly feeling guilty and we end up in this self pity cycle again, episode 84 If you want to hear about that, but we just end up exhausting our brain because of all the emotions we’re feeling when we’re resting.
But if you can carve out time, and again, if you don’t feel like you have the time to do this, then you definitely need to do this. It’s kind of like the same with meditation exercise, if you don’t feel like you have the time, that’s when you need it the most. That’s how this works, too. If you don’t feel like you have enough time to have the privilege to cut some time out, I promise you, even if you experiment with this for just two weeks, that you’ll have to be more intentional with your time when you have less, and you’ll be more productive.
And then when you’re in that time period, where you’re not allowed to do the productive thing, you’ll have to actually explore. Wait, who am I when I’m not being productive? And how might be uncomfortable in The Four Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss, I’ll link his book and his the podcast episode I did about the book, he talks in that about filling the void. So the four hour workweek, if you like productivity, you’ll love the book, he talks about how to be more effective. And the goal isn’t really to work four hours a week is just to really spend time on only the things that matter. And he talks about in the final chapter about filling the void and the importance of doing that.
Because a lot of people, and this is actually when I started playing around with having time off after I read that book. He talks about how when we actually get really effective and when we create this spare time, so many of us don’t even know what we want to do in that time, which is so ironic because we all fantasize about having more time. And then we get it. We’re like oh my god, what I do at this time. So a lot of people fill that void with busy work and what he calls W4W which is work for work sake.
And I found myself like that’s what I was doing, too. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my downtime. And there was always this endless to do lists. Okay, so I’ll just keep working on my to do list. But it was really uncomfortable for me. For the first couple of months of having that full day off. I was like, wait, what do I like to do especially for me, like, this business is really based on something I’m very curious about personally, and I would be doing a lot of personal development.
Even if I wasn’t sharing it, it is something that was a hobby for me. And now it’s like, okay, well who am I outside of all of that, and what other things do I like doing and something that I’ve discovered I love doing is learning about interior design and learning about gardening like outside and also indoor plants. I love indoor plants. Last night, I was researching which indoor plants to get in my office, I already have five or six of them that I want a few biggies to have in different corners of the room. But that’s something that I’m really interested in that I don’t really talk about, I don’t share I don’t post about it.
Like that’s just something I do for me and I needed to find different things that I really enjoyed doing that didn’t have this result attached that weren’t productive that I just enjoy for the sake of doing them. So if you feel a lot of resistance to carving out some time, even if you carve out 40 minutes, just so you can watch your favorite Netflix show without feeling guilty trust me it feels like so different to instead of having all this 24/7 goal of productivity and then procrastinating and then you feel shit to just make the time you procrastinate. Anyway, carve that out as time that you can have off guilt free, then please DM me and tell me how it goes.
But if you’re feeling resistant, please try this. I don’t know if I’ve articulated this well but having two weeks off really just showed me, A, The world keeps spinning, B, no one really notice. And that’s like so liberating for me. And C, that my business like can actually grow my business continued to grow while I wasn’t working on it. So it helps me to disconnect hard work from success and having to earn it and trading time for money. I made money, significant amount of significant amounts of money while I was resting. And so that’s really powerful as well to just have further evidence that that’s possible.
So, yeah, it was really great and to just have a little minute to miss my business was really helpful and to get excited about it again and to have fresh ideas and And with the Super thinking stuff, and basically just doing a lot of journaling and adding time for my brain to make connections for my subconscious mind to bring ideas to the surface that often I’m so busy that I ignore my intuition and those hunches that I have, just like actually allowing myself to hear them and to consider acting on them and what that would look like. So that’s all I have to share with you in today’s episode. I hope this has been helpful. I do feel like I’ve just babbled on about this. But that’s what this podcast is. Thank you for being here. I love you. I appreciate you. And I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye.
So that was passed me from 2019, sharing what it is to be resting without guilt, why that is important, and what that can look like. So I hope that you found that helpful, I hope it has inspired you to really make clean rest a priority in your life and in your business. So this series is all about clean rest. And in the next episode, I’m going to be sharing five reasons why clean rest is hard when you’re working from a to do list and what to do instead, if you want to get clean rest, if you know that that’s something that’s going to be important for you on your business journey.
And if you can relate to what I share on this podcast, then that is going to be the case, then I want to make sure that you are setting yourself up for success. And that means that you are planning properly and that you aren’t working from a to do list it is just so hard to get good quality, clean rest and to get it off in and off. When you’re walking from a to do list, I’m going to share exactly why that is in the next episode and what to do instead.
Then in the third episode, in this series, I’m sharing how to plan out your clean rest and how much you should be getting. And then the episode after that is going to be what counts as clean rest and what doesn’t. And then finally, in this series, I’m going to be sharing what I get up to when I’m taking clean rest, what that looks like for me and how my clean breasts practice has evolved over the years and also as I have gone through different phases of my business and also different stages of life as well.
So with that said, make sure you go and find out more about joining us in PGSD to practice clean rest to practice planning properly and all of those things. So Samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where you can get that information. The doors to PGSD will be opening at 6am New York time on the 27th of July and closing at 11:59pm on the second of August. I invite you to join us in there, I hope you have enjoyed this episode that you have a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.