Here’s a resolution that will make you happy – I promise.  I have been working with it for years now, and I still find it challenging and fruitful.  It goes a long way to keeping me truly happy.

I lifted this potent aphorism from Martha Beck and have passed it on to private clients, friends, and readers like you.

Rest until you feel like playing.  Play until you feel like resting.  Never do anything else.

The challenge for me and maybe you, is to know when to rest.  In our 24/7 culture, rest is a sign that you are failing somehow.  Real men and women don’t rest.  They get by with no sleep and no free time.   They lean into it as the book Lean In suggests.  Thank you, Michelle Obama, for killing the notion that you can have it all, in her book, Becoming.  It doesn’t work and will make you crazy.

Ask your body what it wants.  LISTEN.  It knows everything.  OR you could say, “Listen to your heart.”  Or, “Listen to your gut.”  They all mean the same thing.  Listen to your deep inner knowing.

Trust that taking a nap is the most productive thing you can do.

Trust that preparing the quarterly taxes will look like play before the deadline.  (It has always managed to look like play for many quarters now.)

I repeat –

Rest until you feel like playing.  Play until you feel like resting.  Never do anything else.

May you walk in beauty,

William