Summary: take a rest.

Body:

A banker told me once, when I asked for a small loan which I needed urgently:

Take something when you want it. Not when you need it.

Good line it was, applicable to everything, not just finances.

But how to figure what you want?

Four years ago I moved to another country to start a career. That's pretty stressful. My week consists of 10 hours of working after which I attend school or gym.

During weekends I'm venting off, which means lot of music, chicks, and alcohol.

This way of life is very productive. I'm smashing in all areas. But my mind is all the time in a busy state, I rarely completely relax. I have few orders: work, lift, drink, fuck, learn. I do it effectively mostly because I don't think too much. I turn that part of the brain off.

But what's missing is big picture. Actual goals behind my actions. For that you need to think.

For these four years, I'm making excellent moves in my life. Brought me a lot of things. Lot of important decisions. But..I've never, ever, made important decision about direction in life while I'm in that productive state.

I do something else. Every two or three months, I go on 10 days vacations. These 10 days I forget about my day to day life. I travel somewhere far. That 10 days are more important to me than next three months.

This 10 days I'm resting, sleeping, eating, meditating. I do big introspection. I analyse myself, my life, persons around me, business decisions, what I've done, what I want to do, everything.

But it's coming alone. I'm not forcefully doing it. Once my brain is rested, I just let him do what he learned to do through years of reading good books.

Real intuition kicks in when you're rested, and intuition is sum of everything you know, you're aware off. Every book or line on trp you've ever read is somewhere in your subconscious. You just need to let it work for you.

After this ten days, or more, I'm back knowing what will I do. That gives me incredibly strong confidence and I'm rocking again until next vacations.

This system I developed is working such a great things for me, that I can't recommend it enough.

Your brain needs time to analyze. You need this time in order for everything you've reading and learning to sink in. You build your knowledge and intuition and when you're rested you will use it in the best possible way and always find new direction or confirm old ways.

In day to day productive life we are consuming knowledge. And without rest it won't sink in. Work, lift, learn, sleep, repeat. We are like machines.

After last rest, I've started small business that wasn't even in back of my head before rest.

Rest before that. After it finished, I started with new language school. Also something that was just foggy in my head before vacations.

Rest before that. First day after it finished, I asked for a raise and got it.

Rest before. Upon returning I solved some problems in business which I ceased to solve for few months despite everyday analysing.

Rest before that consisted of rethinking some very basic principles of functionality..aka frame, ground work, the basics. That was also the time when I was thinking about what do I want to happen in my life in next few years.

And so on.

This shit isn't happening when I'm going to gym after work.

Something weird: I noticed how while on vacations artist in me wakes up, and usually I have urge to listen classical music or go to the museum and enjoy paintings. I was listening to Vivaldi once (which I never do) and I started to cry (what the actual fuck??). Later that happened while I was enjoying viewing beautiful old Church in Germany.

However..

Maybe this kind of living is not good for everyone. But for me it's crucial and I want to recommend you to at least try.

Had I not done it, I'd be like a machine. Maybe some foggy, half assed decision here and there. After ten years I'd ask myself what the fuck I was doing. This way it can't happen. Still, nothing guarantees you to make bullet proof decisions, but this guarantees that you'll be at least more conscious about what the fuck are you doing with your life and what do you want from it.

I was observing few very successful guys around me and I'm pretty sure that they are doing the same thing. Actually I'm encouraging my boss to do it as well because I know he'll do better after he comes back.

I'd like to hear other experiences as well.

Lessons learned: take a rest.