I want to share a practice that I had been doing for years without fully realizing its effectiveness until more recently.

The practice I’m suggesting is to engage in an activity for 30 to 90 minutes or more that allows you to reset from the challenges you're facing. For me, that activity is playing football for 60 to 90 minutes at least once a week. I’ve been playing football for over 50 years, but it wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I truly recognized the mental and emotional benefit it provided as a reset.

For example, I first noticed this during a particularly challenging work situation. After playing football, I realized that my mind and mood had been refreshed. As soon as I walked off the pitch, the challenges I was dealing with returned, but it felt like they had been reset. When I was only able to play football once a week, the challenge would stay with me for seven days. After playing for 60 to 90 minutes, the reset would give me another three or four days of relief before the next game.

Recently, due to my work schedule and weather conditions, I wasn’t able to play football for three weeks. As a result, I had no other activity to provide me with the mental reset I needed to switch off from the challenges I was facing.

Your reset activity doesn’t have to be a sport, but I strongly encourage you to find something that fully occupies your mind and doesn’t leave any space for you to think about your challenges until the activity is over.

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