Recovery

When things go wrong in life we spend some time recovering, when things go good in life we also spend some time recovering. All too often though I think we see recovery as a negative, I personally do not see it like that at all, I think it is a fantastic time to spend some time on ourselves and what is important to us….or it should be anyway.

I am going to use two examples for this which I think transfer super well into our personal lives as well as the business world.

A) When I had my near fatal crash in 2018, life in a moment became very different to what it was. I needed help doing pretty much everything, for the first few days I was “recovering” in ICU, then a few more days in the main ward until I was let home where I still had to “take things” easy. The question I got asked the most was “how long will it take you to recover?” A question I could not quite understand. Yes technically I was recovering but who’s job is it to define how long I need to recover or indeed what better is. Well it was mine and I put in place some honest markers but remained open minded and even whilst laid in ICU started trying to move my hand which for me was training, training to get better, to be better than I had ever been before.

There will be ups and there will be “not so ups” in all areas of life, it will sometimes take time to get back to our previous capacity and yes you can define this as your recovery period, however no matter if its a business set back or a personal one the most important thing is that each and every day you take small steps to becoming a better version of yourself, recovery from hitting rock bottom or an accident like I had is a mindset.

B) Having completed my 24 hour run around a 400m track at the end of 2019 I was asked how long my recovery would be? Of course from a technical stand point it takes the body a set amount of time to recover and extreme caution should be taken. However I know my body and I know my mind and setting a specific deadline that says I will be back doing X or Y would create some unnecessary stress in my life that I did not need. Yes the corporate world is often about targets and deadlines but so is my body and its something that is way more important. So when we have set backs in our personal or business lives, why can’t we base our recovery a bit more on feel rather than what other people or the market wants or says we should do. Controversial you may say but try it in your business life as well as in your personal life and you may be nicely surprised by the results.

The simple fact is that recovery is something we will and should all go through in a number of areas of our lives. It is something that needs hard work and focus but at the same time needs a mix of timelines and feelings if you are going to nail it and go to a newer stronger version of your personal or business self.