This is Anne with your Coaching On The Go.

I’ve been working diligently with you to give you tools to accelerate your momentum in the direction of the Vsion that you want.

We spent about two weeks on that.

Now I’m talking about the recovery period between work sessions and drilling down into the philosophy of that time.

When I started my business, I worked full-time as a consultant for another company.

I was a private contractor.

In my mind, I didn’t acknowledge that I was working for myself because I was in somebody’s office, I still was working for somebody else.

How we think about things is so important.

In college, I rode on the women’s rowing team.

Rowing is a rigorous sport.

If you don’t take the recovery period during the complete stroke, you cannot make it through the race.

There is a ratio of exertion to recovery each time somebody takes a stroke with an oar. 

It looks relaxing when you are watching people row from the shore, but believe me, in the boat, there is heavy, heavy exertion going on.

You wind up at the beginning of the stroke.

You come forward on your seat, the seat slides forward, your knees bend.

You get into a complete tuck.

Your back is leaning forward and your arms are extended.

When the oars go in the water, that’s the catch.

That’s a great term for it, the catch.

That’s where your oar grabs the water.

You’ve got to put it in, at the right angle for it to catch.

You’ve got to get it down just far enough below the water so it doesn’t go too deep and make a deep stroke. (or you will “catch a crab” and possibly get catapulted out of the boat)

You want it to be just under the water where you can get the maximum leverage with the tension between the water and the air.

That tension allows you to drive back, first of all, with your back and arms in the same position, but your legs moving your torso until your hands get behind your knees and your legs flatten out.

Then you can lean back and finally use your arms.

You roll out from the tuck.

You spend a certain amount of time recovering slowly as you move forward back into that tuck.

With each complete stroke, there is an exertion, an extreme exertion, and a recovery.

There is exertion with everything you have, and a recovery to let your muscles take a break.

When you come up to the next catch, you’re ready to explode every muscle till you get to the back of that stroke where you start the recovery.

Why am I telling you this?

It’s what I want you to do when you’re working.

I want you to go all in to your work time, plan it, getting yourself to a four or five-hour workday.

I don’t care when those blocks of time are.

For me oftentimes there is a two hour, or a couple one hour blocks in the evening (or a three-hour block, which isn’t the most efficient).

2 hours is the maximum time for productivity, statistically.

Going over 2 hours isn’t efficient.

That is why I don’t go over 2 hours when I’m doing a workshop.

Today’s coaching is about rest and recovery.

What can you do to go all into your work and then go all into not working so that your mind gets a break and you can get the gentle hunches dropping down on you like a whisper, and pick them up.

Have a beautiful day.