4 Reasons You Won’t Reach Your Dreams Unless You Take A Damn Break

Your value doesn’t come from your productivity. You don’t have to earn a break. If you’re tired, you should take a breather because you’re a living creature who deserves to feel rested and relaxed. Don’t punish yourself by pushing yourself too hard because it will backfire. If you want to reach your dreams, you need to be gentle with yourself. You’re not going to succeed unless you give yourself permission to take a break every once in a while.

You won’t succeed without stopping to reflect.

If you’re always on the go, you’re not giving yourself enough time to absorb the lessons that you’ve learned. You might end up making the same mistakes because you haven’t taken the time to look back at where you’ve gone wrong and figure out how to do better in the future. When you rest, you can accept what happened. You can reflect on it, learn from it, and grow from it. If you never stop, not even for a moment, then you don’t have time to examine where you went wrong. Although you don’t want to dwell on your mistakes forever, you don’t want to pretend they never happened, either. You want to learn from your past.

Sometimes, you’re too close to see the solution.

Sometimes, you need to take a step back. You need to give yourself some distance from the work you’ve been doing or the problems you’ve been trying to solve. Looking at a situation from every single angle might help at times – but if you still aren’t getting anywhere, you need to give your mind a rest. You need to put your hopes and dreams on hold, even if it’s only for a weekend. When you distract yourself for a while and let your mind focus on other things, you could come back and immediately see the answer you were missing before. Sometimes, all you need is some time.

Burnout is real–and it’s a killer.

Your whole life, you’ve been told you need to work hard if you want to see results. While that’s true, you can’t work at your optimum capacity unless you’re giving yourself the chance to rest and recharge. If you never give yourself a break, you’ll eventually be running on fumes. You won’t be doing your best work because your mind and body won’t be able to perform as usual. It’s better to take a break and be on top of your game when you come back than force yourself to work when you’re exhausted and make easily avoidable mistakes. In the long-run, resting is the most productive way to spend your time.

Other areas of your life deserve attention, too.

Even though a break might take time away from work productivity, it can be productive in other ways. It can give you the chance to connect with friends you haven’t seen in ages. It can give you the opportunity to restart a hobby that you’re passionate about but haven’t had time for lately. Remember, things that make you money aren’t the only valuable things in life. Relationships matter. Friendships matter. Passions matter. If you reach your career dreams but lose everything else that matters to you, how successful will you really feel?