Renewal

Outside my hotel window is a little porch that ends in a middle-sized patch of well-tended lawn. A flowerpot filled with purple lobelia and white-and-yellow pansies hangs from the beam above the porch. Beyond the flowers, I can see the columns of spruce climbing up the side of Mt. Crested Butte. There's a light breeze blowing, and the thickening clouds promise rain. Or at least a sprinkle.

Just about every year I attend a conference called Consultants' Camp. It's a group of consultants, IT specialists, and process experts who meet annually in Mt. Crested Butte, Colorado, for a week of self-organized collegiality and fun. In some ways, it's a conference like any other — there's a continental breakfast, days full of sessions, and there is a program. By the end of the conference many of us feel tired and full. Learning is everywhere.

In other ways Camp is unique. The setting, the Colorado Rockies, is inspirational. Attendees give all sessions. There is no sponsor. Every day, there's a long break in mid-afternoon, which today I'm using to write this essay. Lunch isn't provided, but most of us ante up and share soup and sandwiches and stimulating conversation. For me, and I think for all of us, there's a feeling of belonging.

Renewal is a time
to step out of
the usual routine
and re-energizeI am experiencing renewal.

Renewal is a time to step out of the usual routine and re-energize. I feel good to be here, with these people — colleagues and friends. Renewal can be a large block of time, as Consultants' Camp is, or it can be a few minutes. We find renewal in weekends, vacations, days off, even in a special evening or hour in the midst of routine.

Here are some ideas for making the most of renewal.

Celebrate your renewing

Choose a place or time that marks the beginning of your renewal. If you're leaving home, perhaps that event is locking your front door as you leave. When you do, pause. Breathe. Celebrate the beginning of your Renewal. Do something similar to mark your return.

Eat something new

Eat something you've never tried before, or something you love but rarely allow yourself. Wake up your Nutritional part.

Sleep a little too much

If you normally use an alarm, try a day without it. If you normally jump out of bed upon awaking, try lying there for a while. Who knows, you might sleep a little more.

Notice Nature

Nature is everywhere, but we can get so caught up in our daily pattern that we don't notice it. Step off your usual path and notice a tree or a flower or a snowdrift or a rock.

Connect with colleagues

Connecting with colleagues, especially without an agenda, stirs things up. You can exchange ideas, and create new ideas together.

Renewal can be exhilarating. It can be a climb to the mountaintop for another point of view — for new perspectives and possibilities. Renewal can give you the energy you need for change, or to appreciate the purple lobelia.  Top    Next Issue

Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

At the Sound of the Tone, Hang Up

When the phone rings, do you drop whatever you're doing to answer it? Do you interrupt face-to-face conversations with live people to respond to the jerk of your cellular leash? Listen to seemingly endless queues of voicemail messages? Here are some reminders of the choices we sometimes forget we have.

Organizational Loss: Searching Behavior

When organizations suffer painful losses, their responses can sometimes be destructive, further harming the organization and its people. Here are some typical patterns of destructive responses to organizational loss.

This Is the Only Job

You have a job. Even though you liked it once, those days are long past, and a return is improbable. If you could, you'd hop to another job immediately, but economic conditions in your field make that unlikely. How can you deal with this misery?

Indicators of Lock-In: I

In group decision making, lock-in occurs when the group persists in adhering to its chosen course even though superior alternatives exist. Lock-in can be disastrous for problem-solving organizations. What are some common indicators of lock-in?

Overconfidence at Work

Confidence in our judgments and ourselves is essential to success. Confidence misplaced — overconfidence — leads to trouble and failure. Understanding the causes and consequences of overconfidence can be most useful.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 11: White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development

Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing," applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups. Available here and by RSS on December 11.

And on December 18: Subgrouping and Conway's Law

When task-oriented work groups address complex tasks, they might form subgroups to address subtasks. The structure of the subgroups and the order in which they form depend on the structure of the group's task and the sequencing of the subtasks. Available here and by RSS on December 18.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenyrWpTxHuyCrjZbUpner@ChacnoFNuSyWlVzCaGfooCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info