Earlier this year, a weariness began to grow inside of me. This weariness didn’t go away with a slow weekend or even by taking a week off from work. It was deeper. Weariness that was dulling my energy, my mindset, and my body. I was beginning to lose the ability to put my head down and punch through my to-do list. This weariness had me tired in the happiest and in the most joyful of settings.

 

Call it burn out.
Call it whatever you want.

 

But I was caught off guard by this weariness, especially with work. I’m one of those people who is motivated by the work I get to do. Though, I am not unfamiliar from hard days, weeks, or projects, I’m often eager to do the creative work for my incredible clients.

 

Until this past year.

 

In May, I sat on the edge of my bed and attempted to meditate, pray, and listen to the weariness inside me. I no longer had the energy to run from it anymore. “Take Fridays off for the summer,” echoed through my mind.

 

Uh, what was that? Nope. That can’t happen, my fears immediately listed:

I’m a small business owner – how could I possibly take a day off during the work week?

The business would not be able to handle an ENTIRE day off.

I would fall behind, be unable to deliver, and hurt my clients.

Taking away a day of work would make me even more weary than I already am.

The business can’t handle a losing a day of work.

 

Despite, as much as I tried to ignore the voice in my head, I took an honest evaluation of where I was. Over the past eight months, I had:

• Quit my corporate job
• Started my own business (Alaray Creative)
• Got married
• Moved across the country from Colorado to Tennessee
• Lost my mom to cancer
• While doing all of the above, I also completed my Master’s degree.

 

Undeniably, my pace of life was unsustainable, and I begrudgingly had to admit to myself that it would eventually result in a crash. I didn’t know if the crash was 3 feet, 3 miles, or 3,000 miles, but I did know I desperately needed to take measures to scale back.

 

Simply put: I needed to rest.

 

Later, that evening, I mentioned to my husband, Grey, that I was considering taking **some** Fridays off during the summer. He looked at me surprised and said, “That’s never something I thought I would ever hear you say. I think you should do this.”

 

So, I did. From May 20, 2022 through September 2, 2022 I took almost every Friday off, 16 Fridays in all. I was not perfect:

• I still responded to necessary emails—and sometimes unnecessary ones
• On a handful of Fridays, I did a couple hours of work for some clients’ deadlines
• A few Fridays were spent preparing for trips. One unfortunately to help plan my grandmother’s funeral (not restful, but sometimes that’s how life goes)

 

All in all, I give myself an “A-” for taking Fridays off. Which is a lot better than the giant, failing “F” I had beforehand.

 

There are three large lessons taking Fridays off and seeking rest taught me:

 

1. Values Start on Day One – And So Does Pride

When I shared my Friday plan with my first Alaray team member, I felt guilty as the founder and owner of the company. Leading up to this, we had multiple conversations about Alaray’s values on advocating and supporting employees with mental health. However, I felt I couldn’t apply the values to myself.

 

My inner critic told me, The owner can’t:

• Take days off
• Raise a hand for help
• Say, “I’ve reached a limit”

 

Through our conversation, I realized if I didn’t apply Alaray’s values to myself, then what was the point of having those values in the first place? What type of leader am I to fail to act when I need Alaray to stand for what it believes in? I would be a hypocritical business owner to not enforce the values I made such an effort to instill. I told myself a break could only happen when Alaray had a larger team, more established systems, and more captains to run the ship. Though, if I don’t take a step back right now, would Alaray even exist to reach those benchmarks?

 

Rest meant acknowledging my pride, assessing my company’s established values, and holding myself to them. Much easier said than done.

 

2. Imposter Rest

Over the 16 Fridays, I discovered what “Real Rest” was, and how it differed from what I’ll call “Imposter Rest.” “Imposter Rest” is when I don’t take account of what I really need, but just do something I think is restful. A few examples for me were, “I’m tired, I am going to…”

• binge Netflix.
• scroll Instagram.
• order DoorDash.
• browse Amazon and Zillow.

 

The above examples are not always rest imposters. Sometimes I can rest with Netflix, scrolling Amazon, while simultaneously tracking my sushi Door Dash order. Nonetheless, if this is considered rest every time, then I’m probably not really resting, but defaulting to “Imposter Rest.”

 

“Real Rest” was assessing how my week had been and what was lacking in my mind and body. A few examples for me are:

• I’m tired and feeling sluggish; my body needs to rest through low impact moving.
  Rest could be sought through hiking, yoga, or walking around the park.

 

• My mind has been on high alert all week; I need to do something without requiring a lot of thought.
  Rest could be sought by sitting in silence (very uncomfortable for me, but good for slowing down), journaling, giving myself permission to do NOTHING, or stop looking at Instagram for the 50th time today.

 

• I’ve been tied to my to-do list all week; my schedule needs some margin.
  Rest could be sought through catching up with friends/family on the phone, doing something creative (art, writing, photography), or making my favorite meal.

 

Some days, an afternoon of Netflix with my favorite meal went a long way. But not every day. However, I do credit one of my Friday’s for discovering Drive to Survive on Netflix and my now obsessions with F1.

 

Rest began to take full effect when I assessed what I needed for that THAT day. Not copying how I rested last week, or how my friend says how they rested. It starts by asking myself, “What would be restful for me to do today.”

 

3. Let Go of My Perfect Plan

I laugh typing the heading because I’m still very much learning this. Often I say, “Yes, let it go,” (full Frozen style), but inwardly, I anxiously say, “But my plan is perfect and has to be followed.”

 

As mentioned in #1, I had a lot of guilt for taking Fridays off as a business owner. Additionally, I was struggling because I felt the business itself was lacking. Alaray had been “open for business” for over ten months without a website, any public social post, or public communication. I was sharing with clients the value for their websites and social media presence without having any marketing efforts of my own. Talk about Imposter Syndrome.

 

I told myself, You cannot rest until, you have:

• Alaray’s website up.
• Alaray’s social media running.
• Built a successful business (whatever that means?!)
• A certain amount of dollars in the bank account
• (fill in the blank)
  

 

Taking Fridays off was not part of my business plan. I wanted to work. I wanted to check off the to-do list. Rest was not mentioned in my marketing strategy books or in the steps to build an effective business. Still, inwardly, I knew no matter how hard I fought, the crash would eventually come; and who knows what effects that would bring to myself, Alaray, and others.

 

As I began to take Fridays off, I noticed a few surprising things:

• My productivity increased during the week because I knew I had to plan to not work on Friday. Sometimes this meant working late on Thursday night, but I knew it would let Friday be a full day of rest.

 

• I had more creativity and inspiration because I wasn’t grinding my mind to dirt. In May I told a friend, “I feel like I’m throwing ashes on ashes.” Rest gave me time to throw logs on the fire. Ashes put out fires. Logs grow it.

 

• I was able to do fulfilling things I wouldn’t have done otherwise because I had “too much to do.” Rest let me go on hikes, explore my new city, process grief, sit and watch the birds, get lunch with friends, learn to get away and be silent.

 

I had to let myself be okay with Alaray not being in the perfect place. We are still working on finishing the website and the social media plan (crossing fingers for December…), but I’ve learned that I must be okay with that. Alaray will always need to do something—many things—but if I hold that over myself and/or the Alaray team, Alaray will focus only exclusively on its to-do list and overlook its mission: do good work with beautiful impact.

 

Sometimes the beautiful impact is letting Alaray teach a really hard life lesson and the good work is taking time for rest.

 

Rest came when I finally stopped making myself “qualify” for rest by having to complete an unrealistic plan, number of tasks, or projects.

 

To sum it all up, rest transformed me over those 16 weeks.

It gave me margin.
Perspective.
Energy.
Enjoyment.

 

The tension between “rest” and “doing” still exists in me. I always want “doing” to win. “Doing” won’t ever win though, because “doing” will never let you “do” enough to win. It’s a sneaky lie.

 

When the end of summer arrived,  all my fears of Alaray failing were wrong:

• The business would not be able to handle an ENTIRE day off. It did handle it and even took on new clients.
  

 

• I would fall behind, be unable to deliver, and hurt my clients. Tasks stayed on schedule, quality was not scarified, and all deadlines were met.
  

 

• I would fail and be even more weary than I already am. I didn’t fail, and I felt more energized than I have in the past two years of my life.
  

 

• The business can’t handle losing a day of work. Alaray did handle it and had no negative impacts on its revenue.
  

 

I still want to do the to-do list.

Check the boxes.

Get to the next thing.

But now my to-do list has a very important item on it: Rest

I hope it’s on yours, too.