It’s not always about money and body, how often do you pay attention to your mental health?
A personal retreat allows you to; prioritize self-care, connect back to your inner self, find clarity, and re-boost your energy for the greater goal.
In this article, I’m excited to list the 8 ways how a personal retreat can help your career life. Stay with me!
Table of contents
What Is A Personal Retreat?
A personal retreat is a period of time that you set aside for yourself to do all the things that you don’t usually give yourself time for.
These things are often the things that we need the most.
It could be giving yourself time to go on a hike, read, meditate, do some work in peace, have a sacred space to just be, or practice yoga without kids, husbands, and puppies getting in the way.
Personal retreats are those which provide us with a space for ourselves and we can decide how we organize our time. In many cases, there are facilities suitable for meditation and guidance. Some venues will offer certain facilities.
Who Can Go For A Personal Retreat?
Personal retreats are for everybody regardless of what you do in life. Whether you’re a minister, business executive, social worker, teacher, or doctor, a personal retreat is something very helpful.
Taking a personal retreat day off as a career person gives you an opportunity to pull away from the stress surrounding your world and will give you a chance to refresh your mind and have a new perspective.
Why Do I Need A Personal Retreat?
Setting aside time alone to be silent and withdraw from the “regular” world may be both frightening and unattractive for some of us. This is especially true for those who have grown up in today’s fast-paced world. We may not have recognized it, but even just a few minutes away from our phones may be challenging.
Having time to yourself helps you reflect intrinsically without distractions from the outside world. It goes a long way in helping you achieve mental serenity and satisfaction.
With most of us speeding through complicated lives, faced with challenges and choices with no time to deal with experiences and feelings, going on a personal retreat offers us an opportunity to rest, regroup, reassess how things are going, and refocus.
In a nutshell, we go on retreats for our own personal growth and development, not only in life in general but in our careers as well. Companies and organizations invest greatly in their staff by giving them opportunities to attend retreats for personal growth as well as development retreats.
How Often Should I Go For A Personal Retreat?
As a career person, this solely depends on the nature of your work and the flexibility of your schedule. If you can afford to go on a personal retreat twice a month, that will be perfect as long as it doesn’t infringe on other important tasks.
What matters most is that at a specific point in time, total attention is given to your mental health.
How To Plan A Personal Retreat
The purpose of every personal retreat is to help you relinquish the burdens of the outer world by staying at peace with your inner self through reflections. Therefore, your plan for a personal retreat should revolve around what brings peace to your heart. Here are a few tips on how to plan a personal retreat.
#1 Determine your intentions for the personal retreat
This entails knowing the reason being the personal retreat. It will help you know the theme, resources, and support systems you need for the retreat. It will help you decide if you will be doing a guided or non-guided personal retreat. Once your intentions are defined, it will help you make achieve the next step.
#2 Choose your location
There are so many options for personal retreats. All you need to do is pick one out of the list. If you love the sea, find a retreat center that will give you a good view of the sea. If you will feel more relaxed in the desert, find the nearest desert and prepare for it. Fundamentally, an ideal retreat location is always beautiful and quiet.
#3 Have a budget
Your retreat location plays a pivotal role in deciding your budget. Once you are certain of a particular location, you need to start preparing your budget ahead of time. While this may be cost-intensive, you can still afford to do your personal retreat at home if it gives you the desired quietness and serenity.
READ ALSO: The Difference Between Networking and Making Friends
#4 Set a date
With a date in mind, you will know how long the personal retreat is going to last and create programs around the date. Your time is valuable, so make sure it counts. Plan your every day in such a way that it doesn’t exhaust you.
A good way to plan the activities is by incorporating meditations, yoga exercises, and other mind-engaging tasks at the time you feel most convenient. You may set time aside each morning to do a yoga practice or sadhana or take the time to relax in the bathtub with your favorite candles burning. Don’t be afraid to mix things up!
#5 Prepare your mind and body for your personal retreat
This is one of the most important aspects of the preparation process. Ensure you eat the right food, exercise if needed, revisit your personal retreat plan, and then pack everything that you need early so you won’t have to rush during D-day.
Where Should You Go For A Personal Retreat?
Your ideal location for a personal retreat is solely dependent on the reason behind the retreat and the kind of environment you feel comfortable in.
There are a lot of different personal retreat centers that you can choose from. You can go to a monastery, a church, a resort, a hotel, a little house in the woods, a cruise, a seashore, a cave, etc. If you are financially buoyant, you can also afford to travel outside your country and experience the retreat anywhere else in the world.
According to tripstodiscover.com, here are the 5 most blissful meditation retreat locations
#1 Spirit Rock in California
Spirit Rock Meditation Center, set among 411 acres of tranquil oak forests in the isolated hills of West Marin County, California, is a sanctuary from ordinary life where it is genuinely possible to quiet the mind, soften the heart, and experience life in a new light.
Spirit Rock offers a wide range of programs in a variety of formats to accommodate anyone’s schedule, needs, and level of meditation experience, ranging from two-hour drop-in classes and daylong events to silent residential retreats lasting three days to two months and advanced practitioner programs lasting a year or more.
#2 Shambhala Mountain Center – Red Feather Lakes, Colorado
Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC), located high in the Colorado Rockies, is the ideal retreat location for learning yoga, meditation, and contemplative arts. SMC blends natural beauty, untouched nature, clear sky, and clean mountain air with the conveniences of a modern retreat facility. Their lodging options range from luxurious lodge rooms with private showers to communal same-gender dorms and reasonably priced seasonal tents on forested slopes. Meals are provided, including vegetarian alternatives.
This is a place where many wisdom traditions are hosted, and we welcome all people inspired to explore the nature of self and society.
Guests can create a personal retreat package or register for a variety of programs at this 600-acre retreat in the breathtaking Rocky Mountains about 50 miles northwest of the charming Fort Collins area, Colorado.
#3 Rolling Meadows – Brooks, Maine
Rolling Meadows Retreat Center provides silent meditation, yoga, movement, and breathwork retreats as part of a spiritually oriented process of self-transformation via the development and awareness of Awareness. The private retreat center is located on 100 acres in the beautiful hills of coastal Maine.
At Rolling Meadows, personal retreats are guided by Patricia and Surya, who bring 35 years of teaching experience, which they have integrated from their shared passion for self-transformation.
#4 Stillpoint Lodge – Halibut Cove, Alaska
This isolated resort in Halibut Cove, on the outskirts of Kachemak Bay Park in Alaska, provides guided meditations and yoga, as well as a labyrinth for walking meditations, all complemented by the beautiful landscape, allowing visitors to connect with nature.
It also has a poustinia, or quiet meditation room, with a pillowed floor and gentle lighting for peace and silence, which is open 24 hours a day. Visitors may also witness animals such as bears, whales, sea otters, and seals and feast on meals made with local foods, including those grown in the property’s organic garden, such as fresh-caught oysters, mussels, salmon, and halibut. Popular activities include hiking and kayaking amid icebergs.
#5 Ala Kukui – Maui, Hawaii
la Kukui is a non-profit community organization that uses its retreat land and facilities to provide place-based programming opportunities that inspire community, spark potential, and empower the human condition in our Hana community and beyond. They believe that genuine transformation can occur when we actively create space and opportunity for growth.
Whether you wish to join us as an individual or as a group, we offer comfortable accommodations and facilities designed to highlight the beauty of the natural environment. We can accommodate a maximum of 24 guests at a time.
Before deciding where to spend your personal retreat, try listening to what your heart tells you. As long as your heart agrees with your location, you will surely have a very relaxing retreat.
8 Ways A Personal Retreat Can Help Your Career Fast
A personal retreat isn’t necessarily an absence but a present but rather a search for a true presence. Here are a few ways a personal retreat can positively affect your career:
#1 It keeps your mind at rest
Going on a personal retreat keeps your mind at rest and rejuvenated for the greater tasks ahead. A retreat allows you to be in a new location with no emotional baggage, and it gives a reprieve from everything you typically experience. This break from routine makes it a bit easier to set aside the tension you typically deal with at home, work, or in some of your relationships.
#2 Renewed Energy
For career people who spend most of their time talking and engaging their brain in mentally tasking activities, a personal retreat allows them to take the stress off their brain and throats. The calm ambiance affords you time to think clearly, listen to your inner voice, and sound sharper.
SEE ALSO: 20 Best Stress Relief Toys that will keep you going all day at work
#3 Peace
Spending time with yourself gives you peace. One of the benefits personal retreats has on career people is that it gives them internal peace. When you spend time with yourself, you disconnect from past events and connect to the peaceful present.
#4 Mental Clarity
There is no doubt that mindful eating, calmer thoughts, listening to our inner self, learning how to live with boredom, and resting will only lead to a new, better you. You’ll gain a bit of insight as to what’s really important in life, and better understand when your body is truly hungry (rather than just craving tasty food), and you’ll feel more comfortable in your own company. Your clearer mind and brand-new sense of grounding will make you more able to take on anything life throws your way
#5 Increased Creativity
The creativity that comes with careful introspection and meditation is next to nothing. When you are alone with your thoughts, you’ll unravel the easier ways to solve bugging issues. If further has a way of increasing your creativity level from where it was to the point you never imagined.
#6 It gives a new perspective
For career people who have not yet found their true calling or are having trouble making the transition from backpack to briefcase, a retreat is a fun way to uncover one’s true path. Spending time out with yourself allows you to identify your likes and dislikes, skills and talents, and areas for growth and development.
#7 Communicate with your inner self
One of the reasons why people seek counseling from others is because they are too busy or they’ve developed difficulty communicating with their inner selves. When you get to a place of calmness and peace, you will have the time to explore what is happening inside of you in order to decipher why you are reacting the way you do. The moment you start off the process, you will begin to understand why you are feeling the way you feel and how best to overcome or sustain that feeling.
#8 It gives you time to sleep
Inadequate sleep generates all sorts of negative effects on the body and mind. In the words of psychotherapists, lack of sleep causes heart stress, a decline in the immune system, an increased level of irritation, and a lack of concentration. As you sleep soundly during the personal growth retreat session, your body and mind get to rest. Also, you’ll find it easier to concentrate.
Conclusion
Taking a personal retreat can change the way you approach life’s challenges and how you move forward when everything seems dead. It’s so important in an age of being glued to your professional career and rushing from one activity to the next that we take the time to connect back to ourselves intrinsically.
References
- themuse.com – Get Away From it All: How a Personal Retreat Helped My Career
- livingourpriorities.com – The Benefits Of A Personal Retreat And How To Plan One
- triptodiscover.com – 18 of the World’s Most Blissful Meditation Retreats
- findmyretreat.com – Why Go On A Retreat?
- themuse.com – Get Away From it All: How a Personal Retreat Helped My Career
We Also Recommend
- The Best 30-60-90 Day Plan Instruction Guide Template for Beginners
- 20 Dream Jobs That Are Not in Your Mind but Really Exist | 2023
- 10 Secrets Of People Who Love Their Jobs
- I Want to Quit my Job this Year: 7 Must-do Backups Before You Quit
- 10 Best Answers to “What are you passionate about ?” Question in an Interview
- How to Get into Acting Jobs with no Prior Knowledge
- 10 Signals that You’re in a Dead-End Job
- 10 Tips for Having a Successful Business Trip
