Why I’m Quitting Quitting, or Why Breaks Don’t Seem to be Helping

I’m realizing that breaks are the downfall of productivity. This is why I’m quitting quitting.

I’m not talking about needed and deserved vacations, and I’m not talking about short breaks throughout the day or even tuning out at night. Those are totally necessary and give you the boost of energy you need to keep going throughout the day. Nighttime tune-outs are crucial, but the breaks in the day should be within reason.

The types of breaks I’m talking about here are what, in my I head, I justify as “little,” or “needed” to refresh and get a new perspective. I’m realizing that these are not benefitting me like I always hope.

Here are two examples of how I fucked myself in the last couple days alone.

A Break from Running (and any type of working out)

If you’ve been watching my vlog, or even following along with some of the posts here (Miracle Morning, anyone?) I started getting into running in June. What’s more than that, I started doing some at-home workouts throughout the day as well.

Side-note: doing 20 push-ups, walking around your apartment/house/office, and getting a glass of water is an excellent break between Pomodoros if you’re into that method.

Two weeks ago, my neck was hurting (a usual occurrence) and I took a few days off from running. Not the biggest deal, but the few days off that week made last week way too easy to slack off. I didn’t run once last week until yesterday (Sunday) and it was a BURNER. Not running also made it easier to not work out around the house.

Man, trying to run yesterday was terrible. Ok, it was noon and the sun was beating down on us, but I was tired and sluggish and slow and tired.

And tired.

I wanted to stop from the moment I started. I didn’t, but I wanted to so. Freaking. Bad.

After cooling off inside and having some water, though, I felt better and was kicking myself for not sticking with it for the 7-10 days prior. It was so easy to tell that I had lost speed, endurance, and just plain will.

Activity gives us energy, energy makes us do more, and the cycle continues.

I’m going to quit quitting things like this. I’m going to work hard to force myself to do the right thing, not the easy thing, which will make me a better person – stronger in my business and personal life.

A Break from Writing

I didn’t get a post out last week. My goal – and I’ve stuck pretty well to it – for the past 6 weeks or so has been to post at least once per week. I plan to up this frequency soon, but that’s been my goal lately.

Maybe it was writer’s block, maybe it was not choosing any one post from my bank of ideas (there’s at least 75 in there…). Maybe it was just lack of scheduling.

Whatever it was, I didn’t blog last week. I did my best not to dwell on my shortcomings, though, (which is another thing I’m working on lately) and instead focused on all the positive steps I made last week:

• I worked a lot on my vlog
• I did a ton of consulting work
• I did more Uber than I had done in the last 7 months combined

Awesome! I really did have a productive week last week. The problem, though, is that today, when I sat down to write, I couldn’t do it. I even planned out my next 5 posts so I knew exactly what I would need to tackle each time.

It didn’t help.

When I sat down to write what I planned next, it just wasn’t flowing. I got a few hundred words in and it wasn’t working. This was in stark contrast to a few weeks ago when I was in the groove of a post a week – words spilled out of me and it felt great! Not so much with today.

So, I closed out that document, opened a new one, and this is what happened.

Maybe I just wasn’t feeling in the mood to be structured today. Maybe I just needed to write something, ANYTHING, to get those juices flowing again and now, with seven or eight hundred words back under my belt, I’ll be able to tackle those planned posts.

What do you think? Is that old saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” true for you? It definitely is for me! I gotta keep those reps up, with whatever I’m doing. I feel better in the short term, better in the long run, and life just moves along much more smoothly.