The Light of Knight's Mind: Sunny Days for Boosting Your Career

Here's an idea: Instead of thinking of your summer vacation as something that detracts from your work, think of it as a way to boost your work performance -- or even your business.

Why? A healthy body makes for a healthy, balanced mind, and that's the chief asset of a truly good worker. It's not about the hours you spend behind a desk -- it's about what's going through your head while you're there.

Here are four ways to ensure that your summer fun in the sun enhances your career success, whether you're still on vacation or are back from one:

1. Go for a run in the park, or swim in a lake at sunset.

It used to be that working out was optional. Now we know that regular exercise makes you calmer, smarter, happier, and richer. So how can you possibly say that it's not one of your highest priorities?

It makes sense that if you feel better about yourself and the world you'll do better in business. Because business is about thinking clearly, acting with confidence, and making good connections.

But don't work out just because people who work out make more money. Do it because it'll change your outlook on life. Really. You'll be less likely to be depressed and more likely to be optimistic.

If you're younger, join an athletic team. People who play sports do better in their careers. The self-confidence, teamwork, and drive that athletes display makes them higher performers at work.

Sure, there are exceptions, but the advantage is so pronounced that some corporate recruiters at colleges ask to see only the athletes.

2. Mentor a summer intern.

Each of us needs mentors to guide us through our careers at different points in time. Sometimes we need help navigating office politics, sometimes we need advice on making a life change. At each point, knowing how to ask for help is essential, and the best way to learn how to ask for help is to give help.

If you mentor someone, you help yourself as well. You'll find out what a mentoring relationship is like from the other side. For example, you'll learn what feels useful to the mentor and what's annoying. You'll also discover why it's important to ask good questions, because as a mentor you're helpless if the person you're trying to help doesn't know what he wants.

3. Curl up in the sun with a book.

Information overload comes from sifting through ideas all day. In a knowledge-worker environment, with the Internet constantly streaming new ideas, the most successful workers are those who can sort information most efficiently.

Learning top-flight productivity skills is essential in today's workplace, but that can only get you so far. At some point, you'll need to read 300 pages on the same topic. For most of you, this means turning off the computer, but luckily summer is a great time for curling up with a good book.

I don't mean a Tom Clancy novel, either -- I'm talking about big ideas. This means that instead of sticking with a subject for the time it takes to scroll down a page, you have to stick with it for an entire weeklong vacation. That might sound dire, but remember the thrill of the rigorous thinking you did in college, when there were no all-department meetings and no memos to read during lunchtime?

Big ideas take time to understand, and they need to grow in your brain so you can make them your own. Take the opportunity to do so this summer, when the world gives you more permission to take long breaks.

4. Differentiate yourself by lying quietly in the grass.

Grand thinking requires space, flexibility, and time. These things are hard to come by if you lead a life that doesn't allow for stillness. We owe it to ourselves to take time to be alone and do nothing, or almost nothing. Even if no big ideas come to you at that moment, there's a clear, still moment where your brain gets a rest. And lying in the grass lets your body rest, too.

Career coach Susan Bernstein says that success and fulfillment in a job come when you connect your body and your mind to your work. The first step in acquiring this balance, I believe, is quiet contemplation.

ベストレガルド、

いややや。。。この間にはブロッギングに関して、しばらく手を離したわ。もう大体一ヶ月間ぐらいだったようね。これは何とも言えないっすよ。きっかけは。。。フジテレビの月9ドラマ”プロポーズ大作戦”なんだよ。俺って、情けない男だよね。ふふふ。。どうしようもないわ。じゃ、これからは再度ブログを復活するぜ～。宜しく～～。明日が晴れるかな。。