Tuesday, 9th July 2024 — Yes! It is counterintuitive but the truth is that some aspects of our life just needed some kind of retreat for that desired big-win to happen. Retreat is not about running away; in this context, it is about withdrawing in order to re-strategise. But this time, I’m not retreating from war; I’m only retreating for productivity. I write almost every day. Since last year, I started attending a writing retreat and today marks day one of our 2024 writing retreat. So the writing retreat simply means it’s a designated sort of get-together where we all focus on writing, working on our respective projects, discussing our challenges, and talking about how it is going generally.
I remember last year’s retreat in Dover. Dover is just at the bottom end of England, very close to France to the east. I had an amazing session—very, very impactful. I remember how inspired I was after the retreat, and I could say categorically that it helped me move faster. Before the next retreat, I’d completed my writings, my project, my thesis, everything. So I could say it made a significant impact. Yes, you might wonder why I had to go for this year’s retreat. I went not because I needed to write, but simply because I also want to continue learning. I want to share the results and the outcome of the previous retreat with others so they know that the gathering is not a joke, that it’s working. That’s a way of giving back. That’s a way to continue and progress. That is a way I embrace.
Well, this is a two-day retreat. I was there a day before it started, and I’m going to stay a day even after it ends, making it a four-day kind of thing. Getting away with my family and spending some very good time even outside the writing retreat. So this is more or less like a family retreat too. So inside a family retreat, I’ve got a writing retreat. Yeah, I had a very wonderful time and the discussion was insightful, ongoing, with people sharing how they magically landed some big opportunities.
Even when pursuing a PhD, you’ve got a lot of writing to do already, but that doesn’t mean you should narrow yourself or keep yourself to writing or doing a PhD alone. There are other related opportunities that can even spark some other future opportunities, such as taking up roles like a research assistant role, doing a bit of collaborative research, teaching, and more.
One of the highlights of day one of the writing retreat was our ability to share deep challenges. If you never go out there, you don’t know what people are facing. Just because things are going well for you doesn’t mean they are going well for everyone else. So we need to be expressive, and just being expressive alone is one step towards solving the problem. Many people shared how they felt and how things are going for them. It’s a big learning experience, and eventually, we encouraged one another, which is a good thing to do. The answer to writing is simply to write and just to keep going.
The strategies to keep writing that I shared, such as the Pomodoro technique (working in blocks of 25 to 30 minutes), work for me. I do this with my friend and even by myself, which I just connected online. We agree on a particular task, and we work, work, work. I’ve got it on my calendar, and perhaps I’ll attach a screenshot of what it looks like for me. Interestingly, we’ve got groups coming up doing the same thing, trying to host similar activities among smaller groups, and this performs magic.
Writing retreats, like every other kind of retreat, yield productive outcomes. Try as much as possible to look at the areas of your life that require improvement and have a retreat based on them. Within your spiritual life, have a retreat to work on your spiritual life. It could even be a group of friends if it is a relationship or networking retreat, or even career-focused. It could be any form of retreat. In this case, mine is a writing retreat. You don’t necessarily have to go because you’ve got a problem; sometimes you go because you have a solution to your problem. Those that are coming there because they have a problem are also looking for answers. They need people like you. Even if you don’t have a solution and you have a problem, just going there naturally means there’s always something to learn in the gathering of people with common interests.
Well, that’s the main part of my day. I think the sweetest part of it was the dinner. We went to a Mexican restaurant and had, what’s the name of the dish? Oh, I can’t remember the name. It’s a very beautiful dish. It came just with the pot in which it was cooked and was placed in front of us, and all we did was just eat it. I can’t remember the name. When I remember it, I’ll let you know. Yeah, I’ve got an image. If you know it, let me know. Mexican foods are delicious.
Alright, so that’s that about today. Don’t forget, retreating is very important. Just as it is good for a soldier at the war front to retreat at some point to re-energise, so it is for every other aspect of our life. So, guys, let me know what you’ve learned today and what’s unique to you, what speaks to you. Have a good day and I hope you read my next blog post.
Lessons
1. Life cannot be done alone, we need people of like minds to push us towards achieving our goals.
2. Always find time to retreat on specific areas of your life (spiritual life, career, health etc). It will yield productivity on the long run.
3. Because things are working for you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t retreat. There’s more room for improvements and it can only be gotten when you share what’s working for you with others.
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