Give Me A Break: How to Recharge Your Creativity and Effectiveness

In everything I do, I am focused, driven, and goal-oriented.  That, and hard work, has helped me achieve everything that I have so far in my life.  But they can only take one so far.  To truly make life fun and interesting, one must forget business every once in a while and let one’s hair down!

Tonight, my wife and I sat down to watch a television show called Dancing with the Stars, on ABC, where a “star” is teamed up with a professional dancer, who then dance in a competition against other professional/celebrity teams.  At the end of the show, there is a Survivor-type vote-off.  Light fare, hokey, some might say.  I enjoyed it because I love to dance, which is strange for me because I’m a geek (there…I said it) and have two left feet…or at least I used to. 

My wife, who loves to dance, got me dancing lessons after 27 years of non-dancing marriage.  It turns out that there are rules to dancing!  Excellent!  Geeks like me like rules, procedures, guidelines, and systems.  Dancing has all of these so I took to it quite quickly.  Because there were more women in the class than men, I had to actually dance with four women (Yeah, I know, poor me), one at a time.  That meant that I danced four times more than my wife.  In short, I found my right foot, and now love dancing.

As I thought of this, two truths came to mind that we all need to remember:

1. If you want to get good at something, you have to practice.  I got good at dancing because I practiced a lot; I danced four times as much as my wife.  I dance quite well now, to the point I’d like to try competition.  Steve Pavlina also mentioned the value of practicing in his post today on hard work.  Steve is a member of ToastMasters International and, not being satisfied with just getting by, joined two clubs, which gave him twice as many opportunities to speak in public.  He also grabs every opportunity to enter into speech contests, which gives him an additional outlet to speak in public.  Practice and hard work result in effortless proficiency.
2. If you want to be effective, you have to let go of that desire to achieve every now and then.  You can’t practice and work hard 24/7 without losing your effectiveness.  You burnout.  What do you do?  Get a hobby.  Learn to dance, draw, sing, or play an instrument.  Learn something that you’ve always wanted to: a foreign language, sign language, a new sport, or how to ride a motorcycle.  Do anything to give your mind and body a much needed break on a regular basis.  I’ve found that when you return to business after taking this “brain break”, you will be refreshed and will find that your effectiveness and creativity have actually improved.

This weekend, turn off the computer and take your spouse dancing, to the movies, or rock-climbing.  Take your kids to play tennis or racquetball.  Volunteer for a charity.  Change the pace for a day or two and then hit business hard again next week and note your improvement.

Note:  For those of you who think I violated my reduced TV initiative, this is one of the vital few shows that I’ve chosen to watch due to my wife’s and my dancing.

Related Links:

• Dancing with the Stars
• Survivor 10
• Shagging and Beach Music
• Thirstys2 – Our favorite place to dance
• Steve Pavlina’s Blog – His post on Hard Work
• ToastMasters International – Learn to speak in public
• The Chairmen of the Board and The Embers – Gods of Beach Music

Comments

[GBGames]

Steve Chandler's "100 Ways to Motivate Yourself" audiobook had an item that discussed the difference between active relaxation and passive relaxation. Things like dancing, playing the violin, painting, and learning a new language are active relaxation and keep your mind fresh. On the other hand, things like drugs and excessive television dull the mind and make it less effective. The other 99 ways were pretty good too.

[Bert]

The active relaxation items seem to require your brain to still be at work...just in a different capacity.

Hmmm. I wonder where web surfing fits in...

[John Richardson]

Great post Bert. I don't watch TV much but I happened to see that show last night. The couple you have a picture of did a wonderful job. They had great chemistry. I have never been in a dance contest, but I have been in numerous speech contests with Toastmasters. Competition is definitely one of the best ways to improve any skill. I can say that my speaking skills have always improved after a contest. Especially when you make a mistake or miss an opportunity. I would recommend Toastmasters to anyone who wants to improve their speaking and leadership skills. John

P.S. Your URL feature on your blog does not seem to be working.