Take a regular day of rest

A regular day of rest — a sabbath — is an important leadership practice because it enables you to fill up your tank so you can serve others. And taking a sabbath helps put your brain in task-negative mode, which leads to greater productivity and creativity.

Are you burnt out? Feeling more stressed and overwhelmed than usual? You probably need a break — not a squeeze-in-a-five-minute-walk-around-the-block break, but a day of real rest. In other words, you need to take a sabbath.

Although sabbaths may be associated with certain religions or spirituality, everyone — whether or not you’re a person of faith — needs to sabbath to set yourself up to lead effectively.

As a leader, you are constantly working in the service of others — customers, employees, shareholders or other stakeholders. And with everything that we’ve all been through in the past two years, everyone’s mental, emotional, and relational well-being is at an all time low.

So, as leaders, you need to be able to fill up and build up those around you — but you can’t do that if you don’t put your oxygen mask on first, as the airlines say. So, you must ensure you get the rest you need so you can fulfill your leadership responsibilities.