Ritual for Reflective Gatherers: Monthly Reset Day

Written By Tes Cohen

For years, I’ve been taking an annual resent weekend (a ritual to share more details on another time) and, as inspired by the concept of the Personal Retreat Day from my dear colleague Wende Whitus, I’d been meaning to take a monthly day to reset and renew. 

And I just didn’t do it. I scheduled over it with client meetings, prep, etc.

Until one day last summer I decided to go for it.

And it has revolutionized my life.

The idea: take a day (or ½ a day!) with ZERO meetings as a time to zoom out.

Check out the key ingredients that make up a typical reset day:

Movement- going for a walk in my faovirte park, or maybe a little bike ride around town

  • Stillness- could very gentle yoga class, going for a float (here’s my go-to spot in Denver), or maybe reiki or a massage

  • Reflect- look back at the last month and plan for the month ahead. My favorite tool to do this is Hustle + Play which has inspiring reflection and action-planning templates.

  • Work-Related Project-

  • Learn- catch up on the Harvard Business Review that I get delivered and am perpetually ‘behind’ on actually reading or listen to a podcast on a topic I want to learn more about (for the past year, it’s been personal finance related)

  • Treat- as simple as a baked good from my local bakery 

  • Gratitude- take 5 minutes to send a quick text or voice memo to share my gratitude for what they bring to my life

If I’m feeling witchy, I’ll pull a few oracle cards. My favorite decks as of late are this and this.

Of note: I know I have more scheduling flexibility since I work for myself AND when I share this with friends and colleagues who are FTE’s, I encourage them by sharing that it doens’t have to be an entire day. Three or four hour chunk (which you could take on a weeknight or weekend) is a really juicy amount of time to take that step away from the day-to-day.

YOUR TURN

When are you going to take your next (first?!) reset day! I'd love to serve as an accountability partner, ensuring you actually do it.

I typically take mine the last Friday of the month. Feel free me to “join” me then!

 

Tes Cohen
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