I have always been passionate about living well and making a lasting difference. Yet, for many years, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t achieve a healthy work-life balance. As a strategic thinker and achiever, I was determined to make sense of my failures and find a way to get the result I wanted.

I had my eureka moment in 2005. It began with the realisation that work-life balance was a misnomer because, according to Scripture, work is part of life. Then, one Sunday afternoon, while I was out on Lake Ijira with a friend, everything fell into place. I realised that just as nature is full of rhythmic patterns that play a vital role in keeping everything in balance; we human beings are hardwired with unique rest-work rhythms that are designed to keep us flourishing from the inside out!

It has taken me over a decade to learn how to act on the discovery I made that day out on the lake in Japan, where this photo was taken. My inside-out transformation began with an intentional commitment to ceasing once a week from work, self-reliance, anxiety, worry and everything else that usually got in the way of me taking a day off to rest. Switching off for an entire day didn’t come naturally, but over time, it got a lot easier. Getting into a rhythm of resting freed me up to the truth - my identity, worth and value are not tied up in my achievements but in who I am.

Once I began to appreciate that rest is a necessity, not an indulgence; it became easier to disengage from the social norms of busyness and hurry and start working smarter, not harder.

By going against the status quo, I have now reached a place where I have the freedom to live in harmony with my unique rest-work rhythm and steward my time, talent, and treasure towards what’s important.