I know it may seem counter-intuitive that a critical component of growing your faith and business is by slowing down. Whether you have been in business for a while or are just getting started, there are definite advantages to stepping back from your day-to-day that will help you grow your faith and allow it to fuel your business.
Planning a time and a place of retreat for yourself focuses on continued growth toward your goals and prioritizes your most important asset, you. Let’s explore the five advantages of retreating and help you make the important decision to participate in one.
Refocusing & Reflecting
We all need time away to think. God has called us to spend time with Him each day and to also extend that to create space for silence and solitude Christ models this for us in Mark 1:35, Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray. By retreating you take yourself away physically and mentally from your business. This shift creates the space to refocus and reflect instead of continually functioning in a reactive way.
Refreshing Environment
A retreat gives you a change of environment that can wake up your creativity and help you concentrate on the task at hand, working on your business goals. It is a great way to be invigorated to focus on what God really wants from you. Hebrews 12:14 reminds us to, Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. What better way to get some peace? The change can spark new ideas and get you feeling more productive. By physically removing yourself from your normal environment, it gives you time to hear from God.
Building Relationships
The first relationship to think about is your relationship with yourself. When you take the time to participate in a retreat you are really valuing yourself and your business. God wants you to focus on having more impact and the only way to do this is to take your work seriously. Even Paul understood that, . . . I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead (Philippians 3:13). The next relationship is with the Father. To truly have a God-centered business it is important to learn how to work on that relationship daily.
Strategic Review
When you are operating your business with clear direction and a vision then you need time away for strategic review. It is an opportunity to get the bird’s eye view of what is happening in your company instead of remaining in the minutia of every day. And, if you don’t have clear direction or a vision yet, it is vitally important to retreat so you can start that process. Only when you take time to really look at what has happened in your business and then look to where you want it to go will you be able to define new growth areas and operate to build what God has planned for you.
Learning & Sharing
A good retreat will give you new learning opportunities for yourself and your business. Learning experiences that revolve around understanding yourself better and how you best operate, will help you grow personally and professionally. Sharing allows you to talk through the learning that is taking place and put into perspective how it will affect your business. The process of learning and sharing gives you the space to communicate with others the thoughts you are having and make informed decisions about how to move forward.
Which one, or more, of these benefits of a retreat appeals to you? Carve out the time to grow your faith so it fuels your business by finding a retreat.
