Il dolce far niente – wellbeing

Hopefully the spring brings the beginnings of more free time and thoughts turn to holidays. The chance to relax and revitalise is of vital importance, but maybe we should follow the same rules and improve our wellbeing at hometoo. A two week holiday out of 52 weeks in a year is hardly balanced.

Review, renew, resolve

Holidays allow us time to reflect – on life and on work. Do you always get the balance right? Giving yourself some me time allows your mind to switch off and can bring clarity to your thoughts. Just allow the thoughts to come and go, having a journal you can scribble notes in to come back to once the holiday comes to an end is a good idea. It helps us quickly get the thoughts down allowing us to keep enjoying the holiday. Write the ideas down and leave them until you are home and back into work mode.

Think about any resolutions or goals you had for the new year. Have you achieved them and now need to set new ones? Are you not there yet and need to redefine? Take this opportunity to look at the balance of your life and make sure it is just how you want it. This is the only life you have, here and right now, and no one else can make it how you want, you have to do that for yourself.

If finding your way is too difficult or you don’t know what you want, speak to others, try different things until you find your niche, read so called ‘self-help’ books for inspiration. Whatever you do, do something. A holiday is a chance to re-evaluate and remember the joy of ‘il dolce far niente’, ‘the sweetness of doing nothing’. Just be yourself and enjoy the experience, if you don’t know who that is then experiment and find out, the world’s your oyster.

If you are looking for inspiration the here are some suggestions that I turn to and have found motivations and thought provoking.

Inspiration

v Chicken Soup for the Soul

v Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach

v Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

v The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

v Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom

v The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

Self Help

v The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma

v The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck

v The Chimp Paradox, Dr. Steve Peters

Biographies to inspire and entertain

v How to be Champion, Sarah Millican

v Becoming, Michelle Obama

v My Story, Jo Malone

v Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson 

For more prescriptive inspiration why not read autobiographies of your hero or favourite sports person?  There are some amazing stories out there from people just like you, be one of them!