Taking time for yourself is essential if you want to be successful. Sometimes, you have to get selfish if you are going to achieve a healthy balance of work and recovery. Always giving without receiving eventually leads to burnout. Most people’s life ratios today look like 9:1 output, leaving a 1:9 input. 

You can only output what you have inputted. You cannot give what you do not have. Blocks happen when you have not inputted enough for it to overflow out of you. It is not that you are uninspired, lazy, indecisive, or even stuck; you simply have not filled your energy tank with enough juice. When you are inputting time for rest and rejuvenation, you will output greater stamina. Productivity is an overflow of what we have put inside us.

Always outputting and never inputting will be your ultimate downfall. Relationships will suffer, productivity will suffer, health will suffer, and you will suffer from not having a well-balanced life. We need to shoot more for a 1:1 ratio of output and input, meaning, that for every time you extract a large amount of energy, you need to refuel your tank. If you study some of the most successful people, you will find they have created vast amounts of margin in their schedule to recover and replenish their energy. Still, for some reason, we believe the lie that, in order to be productive and successful, you must work 65+ hours a week. Reject that myth and make sure you are scheduling in margin along with all of your other responsibilities.

You must be mentally and physically prepared for the opportunities that come your way, and margin is the way to allow for this. Margin is the white space in our lives and on our calendars: the time we set aside for rest, creativity, quiet. Living with no margin leads to burnout. Is your schedule over-filled? It’s time to take something(s) off your plate. It’s impossible to manage a life without margin; you have to figure out what to release to make room for white space, which is as essential as any other scheduled item in your life. Remember, for every one thing you add to your schedule, you need to subtract another thing. For every yes, there is also be a no. Identifying what is truly important in life is the key to deciding what remains and what goes.

Say “no” in order to say “yes.” Do not overcomit yourself by saying yes to the wrong things. Say “no” to the things that are keeping you from saying “yes” to.

Are you going to bed too late, waking up too early, racing out the door, always running behind schedule? You can’t stay on top of things when you are always playing catch up. Be intentional about scheduling breaks between meetings and downtime throughout your week. Make space for your imagination to expand, through creative endeavors.