You will need to stop regularly and take time to sharpen your mind and rest your body if you want to be truly creative in your life and work.

In the bogs of East Galway there was once a contest between two turf cutters. Whoever could cut the most turf in twelve hours would be the winner. With shiny, sharpened sleáns (the tool used to cut turf), the two contestants approached their designated bog areas.

From the moment the contest began, one turf cutter cut continuously. For the entire twelve hours, he never once stopped cutting turf. The other contestant cut for an hour and then stopped to rest for ten minutes. And then, like clockwork, he continued to do this for the rest of the day. At the end of the twelve hours, the number of pieces of turf that had been cut was counted to see who had cut the most. It was the man who rested every hour who won the contest by a dramatic margin.

Amazed and confused, his fellow contestant inquired about the winner’s secret. Without hesitation, the winner freely told him: “Every time I stopped to rest, I sharpened my sleán.” This meant it stayed sharp and cut the turf quicker and easier, unlike the other man’s sleán, which got blunter and blunter as the day wore on.

This is true for ourselves, too. We all need to stop regularly to take time to sharpen our mind and rest our body if we want to be truly creative in our life and work. Getting creative will empower you to move in an upward spiral of growth, change and continuous improvement. It is important to identify what works best in helping you to rest and relax, thus renewing yourself and enabling you to be creative and have the stamina to achieve the life you want to live.

A good place to start is to allocate some quality time to thinking about the life you are living and the life you want to be living and then thinking creatively about how you can bridge the gap. This is all about knowing where it is you want to bring your life and getting creative about how best to get there. It means having the courage to take time out to build up your energy and let your creative juices flow in the pursuit of the life you want to be living. One of the best ways to do this is to know what activities give you energy and what activities take your energy. Then you can see what to spend more of your time on in order to build up your energy and creativity.

If you do want to follow up on what has been written here and living a life of true and real success for you please check out my books – available from Amazon.

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