In this motivational video, author Paula Rizzo addresses viewers stressed by the COVID‑19 pandemic and shares a personal mantra—“rest is the new hustle.” She explains that the forced pause of the pandemic offers a unique chance to clear existing to‑do lists, reflect on what truly matters, and intentionally redesign one’s life after the crisis. Rizzo illustrates this with a personal health crisis (a burst appendix) that forced her to reevaluate her priorities and be selective about what she lets back into her routine. She encourages viewers to view the current disruption as an opportunity for hopeful, purposeful change, promotes her book Listful Living and its website, and invites the audience to consider what they want to change once normalcy returns.
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Hey there, Paula Rizzo here, author of Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less-Stressed You. And I realize that right about now you're probably pretty stressed out. I get it. Everybody is on edge with COVID-19 and staying at home and not knowing what's happening and all of those things. It's a scary time and people are stressed. And I wanted to just share a little bit about something that has worked for me in the past that I think will help you too. It's a mantra. And the mantra that I've used for quite a long time and that I write about in the book is rest is the new hustle. This is a time in our lives where we didn't choose this, right? We didn't choose to stay home. We didn't choose to cancel all our vacations and cancel all of our dinners and birthday parties and graduations and all the amazing, wonderful things that we were looking forward to. We didn't choose that. This happened to us. So we are in this state now of resting, but I think it's a great opportunity because once we get done with all of this, and this will pass, and when it does, I want you to think about what do you want in your life? What will you allow back in? Because now everything is off the to-do list, right? Now you're doing things differently. Your life looks very different than it did 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. But you have a great opportunity right now. And this happened to me actually a couple years ago when my appendix burst. And your appendix doesn't typically burst because most people go to the hospital in time, but I waited 2 days too long and my appendix burst, which then meant that I was in the hospital for 9 days, I was out of work for 6 weeks, I recovered— it took a really long time, over a year to recover, and everything had to come off my to-do list. So I was much more intentional about what I would allow back on after that happened to me because I was noticing what are the things I'm tolerating, what are the things I actually hate doing that I keep doing. This is where we are right now. We're all in that mode of clearing everything off our to-do list and we're gonna be able to design our lives differently when this is all done. So I invite you to look at this from a positive angle and I know there's a lot of disappointment and there's stress and it's a difficult, difficult time. But there is a glimmer of hope here, and there are things that we can be thinking about and noticing about our lives now that when this is all over, we'll be able to design it in a much better, productive, happier way. So I'd love for you to, of course, check out the book Listful Living, and you can go to listfulliving.com and check it out. But let me know, what are you looking to change in your life when this is all over? Because this is actually a really, really great opportunity.
