Adam Markel explains why breaks matter more than constant learning. He uses a lifeguard schedule (hour on, hour off at Jones Beach) to show how downtime lets your brain anchor new information, warns against becoming a seminar junkie without integration, and notes habit formation takes about 21 days.
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So I was having a conversation with a friend this morning, and she said to me, adam, how is it that you, you know, with all that that's going on in. In your life and with the company with peak potentials, with training, with your book, and how do you. How do you keep it. Keep it all straight? Because she was struggling with the fact that she goes to, you know, she's going to a lot of different trainings, so she's like, voracious learner, and she loves to read, and she's really working on her business. And so she's got all these things going on, and she just, you know, feels like her brain is turning to mush, like she can't remember stuff and all that kind of thing. And I thought for a second and I. I answered kind of without thinking, which is always good, I think, you know, well, maybe sometimes it is, maybe sometimes not, but anyway. I went back to a time in my life when I was a lot younger. I was a lifeguard at Jones beach in New York. And I said to her, I go. When I was lifeguard, I remember what we did was we would be an hour up in the lifeguard stand and an hour down, meaning we weren't in the lifeguard stand, and we didn't have to be even near the lifeguard stand unless it was a very, very big day. So. And the reason we were an hour up and an hour down was because quite often we were making rescues. This particular beach, the water and the rip currents were very strong, and so people were out there, and oftentimes they didn't swim well and they drown. So we were always making rescues during the day, on a weekend especially, so that downtime was necessary to recharge the battery. And when it was a very, you know, kind of an easy light day, we would take the down hour and we'd actually go swim or we'd lift weights or run or eat lunch. You know, just relax, maybe look at the. Look at the girls on the beach. And on the busy days when it was a down hour, oftentimes we would just sleep right behind the stand or just kind of close our eyes, etc. And regain strength, regain energy and focus. And I said, that's. To me, in my life, that's been one of the big keys to being able to juggle or handle, let's say, a lot of different responsibilities simultaneously is just to have the time between and time to integrate things. So if things are coming at you in a flood, constant rapid fire, it's no wonder, you know, that your brain is turning to mush. If you've kind of turned yourself into a course junkie, you know, like a seminar junkie, but all you do is go to seminars, but you don't have any time in the middle, in between to integrate what you've learned, then you don't allow. You really don't have any time for integration. You don't have any time to allow your mind to anchor the concepts that you've learned. So they all become very, very interesting. And your. And you feel like you're taking them in, you're learning them, and they're going to become permanent. But the truth is, for something to become permanent, even a habit, takes 21 days to create. So if within 21 days, you've gone to three seminars or you've read six books and you've gone to a program and you started a business and you started working on a pet project and you're volunteering, all those things are great. It's just that you're not allowing your mind to really sink its teeth into any one of them. I hope that makes some sense, because I get this question quite often, not just this morning, but people will say, hey, you know, I am overwhelmed, or I'm feeling like I've got too much on my plate and I don't know what to do about it, and I want to be successful. So I'm feeling like I should do certain things. But then at the same time, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed or just, you know, like mushrooms my brain. So that. That's my advice. And this is something I thought was valuable to say this morning. And actually my friend said, hey, make sure you blog about this. Make sure you let our Peaks family know that this is. This is how you view these situations and how you handle them in your own life, because that could be valuable for other people. So I will say that that is the first piece of it, and the second piece of it is something that I'll blog about another, which is the support that you get from the relationships in your life. Because for me, it's two pieces to this puzzle. One is that I take my downtime so I have time to integrate, just like when I was on the lifeguard stand. That's how I keep my mind able to be fresh and to absorb the new information and to be able to anchor certain things, to be successful, to be effective. So the second piece is the relationships piece, and I'll save that for another blog post. Okay, well, I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day. Ciao. For now.
