What Matters

Sea salt seeking this weekend. 

It's time for some beach.  The beach (a quiet beach) is my happy place.  Some of the best of nature, some quiet time and some time with those I love. 

This is my ideal recipe to recharge. Most of my Recharge recipes include water - ideally moving water - but saltwater is my clear favourite.

I like to fall asleep to the sound of waves so much I listen to the pink noise soundtracks of waves crashing. ...but it's more than the sound and sights of the beach. 

It's also the smell. That smell of saltwater, and the smell of the...

We know HOW we respond is a choice.

HOW we think about things is also a choice, a decision.

Whether you call it mindset or attitude, or something else... Where we let our mind go to, how long we let it stay there.. our thoughts, our thinking is within our control.

We’ve known this since the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts

~ Marcus Aurelius

I find solace and inspiration in these words from thousands of years ago. It reminds me to fill my mind with goodness, to read, to learn, to think.

Easy to forget or not make time...

Do you start your day by consuming social media?  This may feel like connecting but delivers little value and ensures your day is shaped by other people's lives.  

Create before you consume. 

Whether it is:

• writing down 3 things you are grateful for
• sending a text to a friend or family member
• thinking through your day

Start your day creating.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

"How did it come to this?", she asked.  She sounded helpless and defeated. This smart, successful woman was juggling motherhood with her demanding role while in COVID lockdown in Melbourne. When we caught up, she was bouncing her two year old on her lap with her six year old “schooling” beside her, tugging on her every 10 minutes. That day she’d had meetings presenting to the leadership team, delivered a town hall briefing to hundreds and pumped out a couple of board papers. She’d provided emotional support for her team who were struggling under similar...

A week at the beach with the children at the end of a long project has been a good reminder of the importance of taking time to recharge.

In the first month of the project, our team discussed the recovery plans - what good looked like included a successful delivery, exceeding expectations and then some time off before returning to the day jobs. 

This became an asset to our team as we worked through a challenging project with extensive travel and time away from family. 

The week at the beach for me to recharge became an incentive for the children and a reward for putting up with...

Feeling exhausted and overwhelmed? Feeling detached from your work? Know you aren't performing like you could?

There is a difference between feeling tired and being burned out. Burnout was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon.

Burnout stems from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. 

The three main signs of burnout are: 

1. Feeling exhausted or lack of energy

More than feeling physically tired, you may feel completely drained of energy. Despite feeling exhausted, you may experience trouble sleeping...

As we slowly start to return to workplaces, like you, I’m thinking about how not to squander the reset of the last few months.

Once the intensity of crisis management transitioned into the new normal, I found moments of quiet that might otherwise have been spent previously in a car crossing a city for meetings, on a plane or at various events. While I’ve always made time to reflect, I relished this quiet, this downtime.

Are you getting enough Sleep? Are you waking feeling Recharged?