• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Why you need a break

Published: Saturday, 09 March 2013

Life gets busy.  You say 'yes' to things to fill up your life and your time and pretty soon your days are filled with back-to-back commitments.  And life becomes an endless chain of doing.

You get better at what you're doing, because you're doing it all the time - practising, and so improving incrementally.

Going on break enables you to breakaway from the day-to-day busyness and assess yourself for how you're actually doing.  And this allows you to step back and come up with ideas that you didn't see before, that don't just incrementally improve your performance, but causes a paradigm shift.

For example, last year, I ran around and gave 140 speeches, studied at uni, worked on my final year project and worked on Robogals.

I didn't have time to do all of that, let alone sleep or assess how well I was doing at all my commitments.

Now that I've been having a planned break for a week, I'm reassessing everything I do, and I'm so excited about my insights into my life.

For example, I was just going around and speaking continuously last year, with no time to assess how I was doing.  But during my break, I realised that there was a whole another dimension to my speech-giving that I'd never tapped or realised before.  By getting that breakthrough, I now know something that can fundamentally shift my speech-making abilities.  And I know how I can systematically improve.

This was an area I didn't know how to work on before.  But going on break makes you assess everything in your life, and good things come out of that.

I also had all these plans for what I would do after my break.  But by taking time off, I realised that doing all those plans and projects wouldn't make me content, that I was doing some of the projects for the wrong reasons, and that what I really need to do is just focus on my core projects and bring more balance into my life by hanging out with my friends.

So go on a break, reassess, and come back with more clarify, focus and energy.  Bring back a plan that causes a paradigm shift in what you're doing.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Doing things with integrity

    When you do something, do it whole and completely so that it's done to the best of your ability, then ship.  Your attention to detail shows that you...

  • Holding a successful meeting

    Make sure everyone is clear about the meeting time and location. If you are the one hosting the meeting, show up. Woody Allen has a quote, “80% of...

  • Wall of Change

    I have a wall in my room where the artwork is sheets of paper blu-tacked next to each other, forming a rectangle.  I call it my "Wall of Change" My...

  • Your work is never done

    When I started Robogals, I thought going to schools and teaching girls robotics should get more to choose physics, chemistry and advanced maths;...

  • A regularly pleasant airport experience

    One day, as if overnight, all the airport check-in people and desks disappeared.  In their place appeared computerised self-tagging stations.  Across the...

  • Press for Teleport Brain Control

    Our brain control Teleport got some great press!  It was covered by the Brisbane Times, New Atlas, Mashable, BBC and NowThis. Brisbane Times:  Robot...

  • Live at Shell Eco-Marathon Asia

    It's been full-on in Malaysia at Shell Eco-Marathon Asia. The most exciting thing has been tracking our Australian entrant, Girton Grammar Team...

  • Hardy Group interview

    The Hardy Group invited me to speak with them about healthcare, robotics and leadership.  Here I am riffing about those topics!

  • Jevaroo’s base

    Jevaroo’s base dual plates are weighted with three heavy batteries, two large stepper motors for the neck’s linear actuators and its own two steel...

  • What's in it for them?

    What's in it for the other person? If you look at everything from this perspective, you can get anything you want in life.

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top