By Leo Babauta

There’s something lodged in most of our brains that believes we should be focusing all the time. It believes we should be doing hard, focused work most of the time, and the rest of the time, focused on reading, learning, socializing, exercising, meditating, eating healthy foods.

And when we’re not focusing on one of these kinds of things … we feel guilty, because we believe we should be.

There’s another part of our brains that believes we need to be resting more. Like, “I’ve been working so hard, I deserve a break.” And this part of our brain will avoid our most important work when we’re not feeling up to it.

Both of these parts of us has a point — focusing on things that are important to us is a good thing, and so is rest. Unfortunately, they tend to sabotage each other — when we would like to focus, the “you deserve a break” part of the brain will get in the way … and when we want to rest, the “you should be working on those other things” makes us feel guilty.

So how do we balance the two? Let’s explore that question.

Notice Your Main Tendency

While we will usually have both of these beliefs inside of us, competing with and often sabotaging each other … most of us have a default one.

Which of these tends to be your default:

• I should be focusing on something important (work or otherwise) all the time

• I deserve a break / should rest right now

Are you more often pushing yourself to work and sacrificing rest (and feeling guilty in the times when you’re not) or are you more often letting yourself off the hook?

My suggestion would be to practice against your usual tendency.

If you aren’t getting enough rest, and are pushing yourself to work to the point where burnout is a possibility … then practice against this tendency by empowering yourself to rest more. Have defined times when you’re going to rest, and really let yourself do nothing. Let yourself have some guilty pleasures, and let go of the guilt and just have the pleasure. Fight the tendency to work or think about work during the defined rest periods.

If you are letting yourself off the hook most often, and procrastination is a big problem in your life (not just this month but for years) … then practice against this tendency by giving yourself a new belief about focusing when you’re feeling a bit tired. Like, “It’s OK to feel a little tired and still work on something really important to me.” Increase your capacity, a little at a time, to face this discomfort. Still have rest periods, of course, because you don’t want to burn out.

And most importantly, notice when the old default belief is coming up — when you are telling yourself that you “should” be focusing, or “deserve a break.” Just notice, and bring awareness.

What is Your Commitment?

If you’d like to focus more … ask yourself what your commitment is. For example, if there’s a project you want to focus on … what’s your commitment to working on that project? Are you committed to finishing it this week? To working on it for 3 hours a day?

If you’re committed to exercise … how often and for how long? If you’re committed to meditation, what’s your meditation commitment?

By getting clear on your commitment, then you can ask yourself, “Have I met my commitment?” when the question of whether you should work or rest comes up.

If you’re like to rest more … ask yourself what your commitment is to resting. Are you committed to taking the weekends entirely off? Or not working after 6pm? Are you committed to taking 2 weeks of vacation completely off? These are only examples — set your own commitment, and then when it’s time to rest, let yourself fully rest without guilt.

Practicing Trust in Yourself

A big part of the problem is that we don’t trust ourselves — when we’re taking time to rest, we feel fear that we should be focusing on something else, and that’s where the guilt comes from.

When our intention is to focus on something important, we fear that we can’t do it, so we try to let ourselves out of the discomfort by giving ourselves a break.

These aren’t bad things, but what if we trusted ourselves completely? Then we could focus when we wanted to, and rest when we gave ourselves permission to do so.

Also, finding the balance isn’t an exact science — it’s a process. And that process means learning to trust ourselves to recognize when we’re out of balance, and then to make an adjustment.

Practice trusting yourself. Ask what you’d do if you completely trusted yourself — and then take that action. Do it with the assumption that you are fully trustworthy. And let the trust grow from this practice.