#110: Revitalizing your business and mind with a Sabbatical

is a commandment from God it is in the 10 commandments to keep the Sabbath holy. I might as well lie every day. I might as well cuss everybody and their mom out on a regular basis if I'm not gonna keep the Sabbath holy. That's how serious it is doing God's work. It is serious…

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Hey, girl, hey, welcome back. I have been on sabbatical. Now I don't know if you know what a sabbatical is but think Sabbath. Okay. So Sabbath, in biblical terms is the seventh day is the Sabbath, you rest you don't do work. It is holy. It's all the things. So in my sabbatical. Actually, let me tell you how you decided to take a sabbatical. It was end of June. And I was thinking like, you know, I don't know what's going on. This is great. Everything's going great. I've got my team, we're going doing things blah, blah, blah. And God said, Actually, God took my phone and started playing a sermon on my phone. I don't know what you think about that. I think it's crazy. And so I listened to the sermon, obviously. And I listened to some Michael Todd, who's at transformation church, you should google him. He's amazing, I think but he's got really, really long sermons. Like, sometimes they're two hours, and I don't have time for two hour sermons. Unless God tells me to, and then I will watch them. Okay. So it started playing. And it was basically a confirmation of all the things that I've been thinking about that I've been going through. And at the end of it, God said, Take a Sabbath. I was like, Okay, we're at the end of June…. #7, is the number of God completion. So why don't I take a Sabbath during the seventh month? Next month? Like in four days? Why don't I just take a Sabbath?

Okay. Now, I don't know about you. But I am kind of a workaholic, in the sense of, I can't stop thinking about the things I love and the things that I do. I can't stop thinking about helping people become unapologetic about their cause about who they're made to be. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about all the women that I'm supposed to be helping, as I do this, this ministry, this job, this thing that God has put me on the path for, I can't stop thinking about it. And so it was hard to stop thinking to stop doing to just rest during this time. So I did it. I took an entire month off. And my business did not burn to the ground. It didn't. It's still there. We're still doing things. We're still helping women, it is so great.

Okay, so if you want to have a sabbatical, these are the four things that you need to have. One, you have to have a plan. You can't just walk away from your business or your ministry or your job for a month. Without a plan. It just doesn't work like that. And two, you have to schedule content. If you're a digital marketing business like I am, you have to have a team that is going to do that. Or you have to do that. And three, you got to delete those apps, delete the apps off your phone, because otherwise I would be checking my email as emails are coming in, I got to answer all these things on Instagram, I got to answer these Facebook messages and post. I had to let my team beat my team. And for the hardest one, you got to relax, you got to relax girl, because if you're not relaxing, then what is the point of the Sabbath? Anyways, the point of the Sabbath is to give it all back to God to show him that you are being obedient to His plan. Okay. So we're gonna talk about all the steps. So number one, the plan. So when you are having a plan, when you decide, yes, I'm going to take a Sabbath, whether it be for a week or four weeks, you need to have a plan of what is going to happen. Okay, so you need to decide, are you going to use automation? Are you going to have calendar invites? Are you going to block off your calendar? What are you going to do for automation? What are you going to do? Are you going to automate all your posts going out? How much automation Are you gonna use? And then are you going to continue your long form content? My long form content is this podcast just is. So I had my team prepare all these episodes that were my highest rated episodes. So that way, I still have content going out. It is recycled content, but it's still content. I'm still showing up, I'm still showing up in the way that I was showing up before. And three email responses. Are you going to have somebody in your team respond? Are you gonna tell them you're not answering an email? So the next four days? Are you going to have them contact you in case of an emergency? What constitutes an emergency to contact you? Mine was I work in a digital business unless I'm getting sued, don't call me. Don't call me. I'm going to try and take a month off. Don't call me this is the practical things that I did.

I told my team, I'm gonna take a sabbatical for a couple of weeks, I handed over all my passwords, everything that they need to do on my behalf. In fact, I was at a summit. While I was on sabbatical, I had already taped all of the things. I recorded some podcast episodes, guests episodes. So those came out while I was on sabbatical. So it looked like I was working, but I wasn't really working. And then I had automatic posts come out, I have a person on my team who is creating content on behalf of me, and putting things out answering my my DMs, putting things in my Instagram stories, because that's where I show up, I show up in my stories more than I show up anywhere else. And then I had my other friend on my team, she was answering all my emails, making sure that people were getting back to in a timely manner, that we were getting close with whoever needed my attention and getting those answers. She knows most of the things about my business. So I was comfortable with her answering those questions. Okay, you got to implement the plan easily. You just implement the plan, you just do the things. So once the content is scheduled, even if you have to make sure the content is scheduled. And you look at the content before it's scheduled before you go on sabbatical. Cool. Do that, if you want to do that. I had some that didn't go out like it was supposed to. But I was okay with that. Because during my sabbatical, I had some realizations, then we have to delete those apps off our phone, right? So if we're gonna delete those apps, we need to stop syncing those apps or remove those apps for Google. Gmail. I stopped syncing, I stopped syncing so that way, I don't have to see those notifications. I don't have to see the answers. I don't have to connect with anybody. I took off discord. That's how we communicate with each other. I know some people who use Slack, but it feels too uptight and businessy for me, so I'm so cool. I use discord instead. It's literally the same thing. So yeah, took discord off my phone, I took ClickUp off my phone, I took Gmail off my phone, I took Instagram off my phone, took it all off, because I was not in a place where I could trust myself to not just get on and if I was on my phone, I just know myself. I'm going to check all the things because I'm a business owner and I am obsessed with my business and all the things that are happening in it, and I can't stop looking at it.

And then the hardest thing that you need to do is relax girl, you need to relax. So I did some things that I have never done before. I killed a chicken. i That sounds kind of strange to say but I, I helped slaughter chickens. My friend has a farm. I live out here, Missouri, it's a little bit country out here. They're a little crunchy. And so I helped her slaughter her chickens. And it was a new experience. And I don't know how to do it again. But I had a learning experience and I am good with that. I am good with learning new things. I'm good at finding new hobbies. I think that finding new hobbies is good or revisiting old hobbies. So one of my old hobbies that I revisited was crocheting. So I didn't crochet. I didn't finish crocheting the blanket that I started when my kid was an infant, but I did put some wrongs in it, or whatever they're called. I did a puzzle or two, which I haven't really been puzzling lately. I contacted some old friends and just caught up. It was fun because I was like okay, now I can reconnect and rekindle these relationships. And then I also read for-fun books that I got from the library, which I don't read for fun books. I only read books to continue my mission here on Earth, which are self help or directional books or books about marketing or sales or strategy or something because that's what I do and I enjoy those, those are fun to me. I don't know if that might be fun for you. That might not be but that's fun for me. So I read fun books, meaning they were fiction. They were just about a story. They weren't about anything. There were no lessons to be learned. It was just fun. It was just fun to read a book and not have to worry about things. But also I like reading. Those are the kind of books so it just is.

And then we also took our family to the lake. My kids have never been to the lake, and we got in the water. We kayaked. We saw some snakes, we ate smores until we were full, we read, we had books outside, we ate outside. We got mosquito bites. It was fun. It was a lot of fun, just spending time with my family doing family things. At the beginning of the month, we started out by going to St. Louis, which is about three hours away from here with a dance competition, and we ended it with a lake. I just spent all of July, reconnecting with my family, being there for them, having fun with them. And I feel refreshed. I feel a new spirit in me and in this business. Because God told me to take a break. I never thought that taking a break would help me. But it has cleared my head tremendously. And I am so excited for this, this new season after sabbatical. And I think that might take a sabbatical every year, or maybe every seven weeks. I don't know. But I like the idea of a sabbatical. I really do.

I think that everybody should take a sabbatical. especially when they're feeling overwhelmed, and you're gonna do four things in order to take a sabbatical, make a plan, schedule your content or implement that plan, delete all those apps off your phone. And then girl, just relax. You need to relax. In fact, Sabbath is a commandment from God, it is in the 10 commandments, to keep the Sabbath holy, which means do that do the Sabbath. So if I'm not doing the Sabbath, I might as well be killing. Honestly, I might as well kill somebody if I'm not going to keep the Sabbath holy. I might as well stab somebody in the back. I might as well lie every day. I might as well cuss everybody and their mom out on a regular basis if I'm not going to Sabbath. That's how serious it is. doing God's work is serious. Do the Sabbath. That's also part of it. Do the Sabbath you got to so when are you going to take your next Sabbath? We're going to take your first Sabbath because I know you've never taken one. What will you do on your first Sabbath? And first of all, tell me when you plan to take your first Sabbath and if you need help, reach out to me on the DMS. Share this with a friend because I know your friends also need to hear this. And I will talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Wow, that was so good. So I know that you know somebody that also needs to hear that. So share this episode, leave a review. And I would love it if you could watch my free workshop at Jeanette peterson.com/missing piece. I'll see you guys over on the ‘grams at Jeannette dot Peterson bye