Ahhhh! It’s all so quiet.

I thought I’d casually check in to my virtual office and do some light duties whilst I wait for Rebecca to rise.

And so here I am. I want to share with you my insights from this week and to remind you of the importance of listening to your body.

As business is expanding, life feels ever exciting (new office space is ready in 2 weeks) and I’m so blessed that I get to work with some incredible coaches, both as coach and coachee. It’s a virtuous circle of empowerment and love!!

I’m currently working towards a specific deadline, with many moving parts to coordinate and people with which to communicate in order to achieve a milestone goal.

What this means is that I’ve been working with increased intensity these past few weeks.

Experience has taught me how to manage my schedule. I don’t manage my time anymore. I manage my energy and my attention levels.

I manage my decision-making and my will-power and use them when they are strongest i.e I never make business decisions late in the afternoon. (What to cook for dinner is just about my final vestige of decisive display!)

I’m like a bull out of the gate on a Monday and Tuesday, these are super productive and focused days. As a rule I don’t coach on these days as I work ON my business. I also know that by Friday my brain is like pulp so I don’t schedule in any attention taxing work then.

What I noticed however, this week, is how utterly spent I felt in the brain department pretty much by Wednesday.

I felt weepy and tired.

I didn’t complete all the tasks that I’d planned to keep me on track and I found I was starting to berate myself for getting distracted.

Despite taking weekends off and leaving Fridays empty, I had over-looked how much mental energy was being used up in working towards my big goal.

We hear a lot about self-care. Self care in the form of sleep, exercise and eating well is vital.

I just want to focus you on sleep because if you’re anything like me, you’re spending 90% of your waking life (not a real statistic, just my opinion and how it feels ) thinking about business and work and clients and income and growth and expansion and personal development and coaching and clients and work and personal development and business and growth and clients and…

Now, again if you’re anything like me, that’s cool because you’re passionate about your business and you love what you do.

However, it’s intense. You’re never not thinking with a level of intensity. And your brain uses up a third of your calorie intake. It’s a high energy consuming organ.
We need to recharge our brain energy with high quality sleep and a lot of it!!

There are stories of entrepreneurs sleeping only 4 hours a night and working hard in and on their businesses. And yes I’ve done that too, in the early days. But only for a week or two. And then I had to sleep.

And on reflection, the activity was more action orientated, I was taking massive action that had already been thought through. The thinking part was done.

Creativity requires an extraordinary amount of mental energy. It feels energising when you’re in flow but leaves you depleted and in need of quality and restorative rest

Check in with yourself and give yourself and your business the gift of sleep. Your body will thank you for it as you’ll be giving your brain the chance to focus it’s attention on vital physical healing and restoration.

Love

Sanae x