What to do when you're beyond tired

I'm tired.

It's been a big week. Not busy, I don't do busy. If you measure busy-ness by the number of phone calls and emails, I'd be declared clinically dead.

I've had a lot of big stuff to do this week. Not stressful, but pressured, which is good. The kind of pressure that saw me lying in bed one morning thinking that the module I'd just written for our Active Manager Programme (AMP) wasn't yet as good as the others. It was missing something that has made the programme have more impact than anything else we've done. Ever.

The module wasn't yet up to that standard. It was 60/15 rather than 80/20. And then I worked it out. The power of AMP lies in its requirement for people to practice a skill every single day. How could I translate the concept I was working on to make it a daily practice? As you'll have guessed, I worked it out.

This week I've powered through a lot of great content. I had a wonderful seminar with the Hamilton branch of Registered Master Builders - lively and engaged.

And Franceska and I had our weekly relationship time (3-5 Friday), then I played at the Jervois wine Bar with my brother Bede, which was just wonderful, despite feeling a bit tired. We're called (wait for it) The Ashby Brothers. I suggested Combro, but that got turned down. As did my suggestion for our boat….What's wrong with "broat" anyway?

So, I'm tired. And here's what I did about it. I was 45 minutes short of my weekly goal of 4 hours of exercise a week. I accepted that I wasn't going to make my goal, so I just did 30 minutes because that's all I had the energy for.

There is no point in achieving a goal if it comes at the cost of being present and engaged in the rest of your day.

The real objective is not to achieve your goals. It's to maintain the habit and the discipline of excellence. I maintained my habit.

Now, what am I going to do today? Well, what I won’t do is try to talk myself into pushing through, ignore the tired, show grit, etc.

What I will do is listen to my body (and mind) and take a rest and recharge. What I will do is mindfully and deliberately relax for the rest of the day.