Turning It On After Being Off - Part 1

Last week was an off week for me and I no more like to admit it than I enjoyed going through it. We’ve all been there: that feeling of not firing on all cylinders no matter how much effort is exerted, the sensation of an empty pit where your stomach used to be but can’t be fully identified, and the knowledge that you are just not being your normal self. Again, we’ve all been there and it’s not a fun place to reside.

For me, it’s the neighborhood where time stands still and productivity decelerates into gridlock – and that’s where I lived all last week.

Of course, I can identify many of the reasons I was out of sorts last week: managing – and sometimes corralling – the growth of the organization that publishes this weekly blog, striving for sustained excellence while juggling ostensibly countless projects, balancing personnel to ensure we have the best team to execute for our clients, and developing new products and services for a hungry audience. If you’ve loved what you do, you know that what I just described is both the fuel that drives you and what can also lead to burnout. It’s a careful, but necessary, tightrope to walk. Even so, I can feel the weight of it on me and that was a huge factor in making me feel off.

The entire week I felt like I accomplished nothing which only exacerbated my feeling of being off. The worst part is that I could tell that one of my greatest strengths – communication – had abandoned me. I was short with people, curt in my email replies, and looked at each email, text, and voicemail as something to be “dealt with” as opposed to an opportunity to interact or relate with others. I could even sense that I was not only projecting my frustrations on my coworkers but on the people I love and care about the most.

Again, not a great neighborhood to live in and, candidly, I’m ready to move out.

The most common method to turn it back on would be just to power though, and that’s generally how I’ve approached this type of challenge in the past with varying degrees of success. As I was fighting through this week, I had a wonderfully open and candid conversation with a close friend. I shared the litany of things that I felt were adding weight to me and, after she gracefully listened to me, she paused and pointedly told me that the weight I was feeling was almost entirely self-imposed. While I knew she was right, it was still difficult to hear and process. 

A quick aside: good friends generally agree with you. The best of friends are the ones that aren’t afraid to challenge you and tell you things you don’t want to hear, regardless of their validity.

She went on to tell me that I fully needed to unplug as it would reset my brain and allow things to simply breathe. I never really looked at taking time away from the office as allowing projects and work to breathe; I always looked at it as simply “getting away.” Her words instantly struck me as incredibly wise and, knowing I was already taking time off over the weekend to attend the Masters, it made all the sense in the world.

I’ve both written and spoken often about the need to shut down in order to keep moving forward but have never really taken that lesson to heart – until now. As I write this blog, it’s Thursday, April 11, 2019, at 11:44 AM CDT and as soon as I’m finished writing, I’m going to do something I can’t recall ever doing: I’m going to walk out of this office and intentionally go off the grid. I know this is the right approach for me as even the simple act of writing it down makes me feel lighter.

My goal is not to respond to a single work email, phone call, google hangout message, text, or smoke signal until Monday afternoon. The fact that I’ll be attending an event where cell phones aren’t allowed isn’t lost on me. Frankly, I welcome the forced help I’m not sure if I would be able to do it alone in an age where we are expected to be plugged in 24/7. That’s the reason the title of this blog has a, “part 1” in the subject line – the final words of this story haven’t been written yet. You’ll have to check back next week for part 2.

For the next few days I will be free of email, 13+ hour work days, podcasts, blogs, artwork, design, projects, videos, product development, human resources, and everything else promotional products industry related. It’s alternately freeing and nerve-wracking, but I’m committed to making it happen.

So, if you needed me over the weekend, I hope you had my personal cell number and packed your patience. I was busy turning it back on.

Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 18 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, president of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, and developing branding that resonates with a target audience. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.