Your Dormant Period
My mom has taken up gardening in retirement.
I’ll never do it. I don’t have the patience.
According to Fiskars, it takes three to four weeks from planting to harvest basil. I’ll let someone else do that before I get it at the supermarket.
The is the first E-Impact entry that I am typing back on my traditional Saturday morning schedule. During the month of July, I spent a lot of time learning about God, resilience, and patience.
It has been said before that life is a journey. There are multiple seasons - some as a result of society but some also as part of our own individual experience and development.
I have never been the most patient person yet I feel I’ve been pretty resilient. Listen to Speaking of Impact episode 1 and see the Appearances page on this site for some of my related stories.
I’m also not a theological scholar. But, I’m curious.
Interestingly, what I learned about the three things is that they are related.
Selective Patience
It’s easy to recognize resilience in the face of life-threatening illness and terrorism. Yet, it’s not so easy to recognize patience. In fact, you might say urgency is the opposite of patience. I disagree.
Patience is a virtue.
Patience is a willingness to accept the time it takes to see a result. It’s related to the end of something. Urgency is the acknowledgement of something’s timeliness. It’s related to the beginning.
You can be patient and urgent at the same time.
With that being said, I’m a really patient person!
No really, I am. I just display it in a very selective manner. When things are urgent, my mind tends to simplify and focus on what’s most important. I don’t know if this is a result of “nature” or “nurture” or both.
My learning during the last month led me to realize how powerful patience has been in my life.
Maybe I should choose to use it more often. Gardening though?
Sorry, Mom.
Pushing for a Break
We’ve covered the coexistence of urgency and patience but let’s talk about patience on it’s own or with other things.
I come back to the July 21, 2022 E-Impact Blog entry often. It talks about celebrating the small wins you have an effectively taking a small vacation every day. You could apply this concept and larger breaks to this entry.
As I mentioned above, there are seasons of life. Although I don’t think I’ll ever find the gardening season, maybe someday.
But what about seasons I desire? What if I’m looking for the “win the lotto” season or something prosperous but not as luck or far-fetched?
Part of the beauty of life is that it will end (on Earth at least, back to my theological expertise, haha). I’m afraid of death and it’s easy to forget this but there is something about finite periods of time that provide us with a better understanding (and a sense of urgency).
Things that never end are beyond our scope of clarity. Maybe Revelation 22:13, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, is why I’m not a Biblical scholar.
We must celebrate the beginning and ending of different seasons of life, relationships, and business. If that’s the case, we have to embrace the virtue of patience in the absence of urgency.
In other words, take a break!
The key word here is “take”. Don’t let a break (or something worse) take you.
Dormancy
Don’t run from a dormant period in life. Take it.
You can’t erupt in every season of life.
Dormancy is defined as:
the state of being temporarily inactive or inoperative.
Apply this to any areas of life - especially those to which you give great effort.
I’ve praised Steve Jobs on multiple occasions and even tell his story in my book, Personal Finance in a Public World. I also mentioned him in E-Impact 32. He’s a good example of someone that had a major interruption in his career and business and ultimately became amazingly successful.
You could argue that Jobs’ separation and reuniting with Apple were exactly what he needed. In some ways, I agree but I also think a little more patience may have served him and the company well in the early going.
What if we were a little more active in our pursuit of breaks?
I don’t mean your daily lunch break or a minutes rest between sets at the gym. Although, these are great metaphors for life. Again, they are easy to understand and you can see the end of your effort.
“If I can just get through the next hour, I’ll head to the cafeteria to eat.”
You know when work ends and what’s next.
Apply this to your broader life. You can’t work forever. I don’t care if you are the most energetic impactmaker ever (I used to think this was me).
Schedule your periods of dormancy.
Productivity
I often say that stressing the body is great rest for the mind. Outside of sleep we are not meant to do nothing. And even then, the body is hard at work recovering while we are sleeping. See this WebMD article about REM sleep.
Boredom is defined as:
the state of feeling bored.
This made me laugh. Captain Obvious alert!
I’ll assume you understand the concept of being bored. The important part of the above definition is the “state”.
Can you try to be bored? Interesting question - either way, if you’re ever in that state it could actually be a good thing.
I wouldn’t recommend seeking boredom but it may be a sign that a season of life has ended. It could be time to take on a new challenge, a new type of productivity, and a period of dormancy.
It’s very effective to rest yourself from one type of effort by putting forth another kind. My morning workout is great for the rest of my day which involved a lot of thought related to Initiate Impact. Keeping it in the gym and going back to a short term metaphor - consider the concept of super-setting.
See Men’s Journal’s article on super-setting. Use the rest, boredom, or other time in between activities to be productive.
Burnout
The ultimate proof of why identifying a dormant period is important is a state of burnout.
If a “flow state” or “deep work” is the ideal scenario, then burnout is the exact opposite.
Think of a dormant period as a not as stressful yet still productive state that can and should replace all instances of this counterproductive state.
Don’t listen to any sources that urge you to push yourself until you can go any further. This is not good in the gym or in life. Identify your limits, put up strong boundaries so as to not get there, and plan what you’ll do instead.
Hard Work
It’s a good sign if you find this entry challenging. It means you really care about your faith, family, and finances. You have an impact project that is meaningful. It’s the mark of someone who wants to use his or her gifts and talents to make the world a better place.
I don’t think people who are not driven experience burnout. They might get to a point where they are really tired or frustrated but it’s a different experience to be fatigued without a desire to continue. It’s not as mentally taxing. Impactmakers are uniquely susceptible to disappointment when something so meaningful is so challenging.
The real hard work is setting your boundaries. Slow down when you see the fatigue coming and if possible, anticipate that and schedule your period of dormancy.
The pastor that served the church I’ve attending (St. Paul Lutheran Church in Weston, FL) for over twenty years used to take a yearly sabbatical that lasted about three weeks.
I used to wonder what he did during that period of time. I found out that he would get out of town with his family and do something different. He was extremely committed to his ministry and spend a lot of time “at the office”. However, he was extremely intentional about this “vacation” every year.
In talking with him, I found out that it was a challenging thing to step away every year. There were always things going on that the only minister at the church “had” to handle. He credited the congregants for urging him to (almost demanding he) do this every summer.
It can be hard, and sometimes take pressure from others, to take a break. It’s worth it to develop this habit and have your loved ones hold you accountable.
What to Do
I can’t tell you exactly what to do during a dormant period but I can tell you exactly what not to do and that’s whatever you’ve been doing. This may seem obvious, like the definition of boredom, yet I’ve seen numerous examples indicating otherwise.
Finding a different way to solve the same problem, or a “less taxing” way of working on the same thing is not the answer.
Try something a little out of your comfort zone. Remember that a challenge in one area is a good way to rest in another.
Try a new hobby or take an online course about something you know nothing about.
Ask your family what they’d like to do and enjoy their happiness.
There are also plenty of preplanned trips that you can take. Some are educational, others are just pampering.
I like to travel. There’s nothing more relaxing than seeing new things, people, and cultures.
The Internet is the ultimate tool in this case.
Search for something unique. Find a productive dormant period and erupt with impact when it ends.