The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about getting the most from your vacation to support your health and well-being. In this article were behaviors to emphasize prior, during and after vacationing. Naturally there were several studies supporting maximum benefit from engaging in these activities.
Prior to taking time off, planning and anticipating your trip boosts your energy and happiness. When we imagine our future fun, relaxation, and connections with family and friends, we feel the joyful experience right now. Anticipating a future positive experience brings those good feelings to the present.
While on vacation, “unplug”. You no doubt have heard this suggestion before. Are you practicing it? Give your body and mind a rest from your normal day to day activities and technology so that you can truly take time off – do not read emails or business materials, do not answer the phone or talk to anyone about a work related matter, allow yourself to be “technology free”. Be in your present “no obligation” experience and try something new, which may be sleeping late, walking to breakfast, or going to bed early. Engaging in a different activity than your normal routine is vital for your systems to re-energize and come alive. We spark vitality when new muscles are engaged and new experiences are consumed. Go to a museum, rafting, dancing, karaoke (our family visited a Karaoke bar in Japan many years ago – that experience comes alive today).
Upon returning home, ease into your workflow and routine. Do not feel compelled to make up productivity for the time away and work ten or twelve hours a day. In fact, you might try a “buffer” day; this day is a suggestion by Dan Sullivan, highly successful entrepreneur and founder of Strategic Coach. As a prior student of the program, we learned to type days as free, focus or buffer. Buffer days are just what they sound like: they are a buffer or transition space that allow for movement between varying life intensity (work, play). Buffering might be going in to work for ½ day or perhaps staying home leisurely attending to emails only.
Effective vacationing and the suggestions above have merit; but they are not earth moving or heart touching. In fact, in some ways it is fluff. You know what I am talking about – this is the information we already know; it’s not new. So why am I repeating it? Because just knowing something doesn’t make it happen. Just knowing something is VERY limited. In order to gain any benefit from any idea, we must experience it. We need to engage our body and mind in practice. Practice means we literally DO these ideas. We intentionally activate our muscles – our body and our awareness to enjoy the vacation as we anticipate it, to fully engage in leisure and new activity while we take time off, and to re-enter our work in a new way. So this is the practice and you must practice. Are you willing? Now, if you are an over achiever and you want to supercharge your practice, wonder how the joy of vacationing (flow of life) can exist at all times – whether you are working or vacationing. It’s possible. It’s profound. It’s your opportunity.
