Take A Guilt-Free Break

From the time I really dug into my career in New York City I put my “all-in” ethos to work. Basically, I’m a bit of a workaholic. I probably shouldn’t admit that. I love solving problems and getting things done but I wasn’t always like this. Growing up I was all about chilling, resting, daydreaming.

But New York tripped a wire in me, and it’s been all work all the time. Why am I mentioning this? Because I’ve come to see – and believe, that this isn’t the best approach to doing life.

My husband is not the opposite of me, but he’s not as driven (though he’ll admit that I’ve helped him “do it now”). Even so, he gets it done, just in a more reasonable way. I’m learning from him too. When we first got married and he proposed a two-week vacation I was like, no way! Two whole weeks? That’s how they do it in Australia (where he’s from) and that’s how they do it in Europe (where we were living). To be honest, I took one week off and worked the second week (sort of). But it was a revelation. I mean it takes a week just to wind down.

The pandemic made us all slow down. At least at the beginning. I was on a plane up until that point every two weeks, often more. And these were transatlantic flights. So, I leaned into the opportunity to just hang around the house. It was a great reset for me. Up until that point, the only time I slowed down was on a vacation or when I got sick. Sometimes I suspected I got sick just to chill. I mean, I couldn’t work, could I? How sad is it that illness was an excuse the take a few days off? Last summer I got to do a bucket list vacation in Provence in the south of France. We were going to take two weeks, and then we pushed it to three and while we were there I decided we should just go for the month. We’d had all kinds of aborted breaks with borders closing last minute, etc. We weren’t sure we’d even get there.

All this is to say – we all need downtime to recover and reset. If you can’t afford a break (I’ve had many years in my life where this was the case) do a staycation.

Don’t let the flu be your holiday. We often have guilt over taking time off, but it can be life-giving. Ditch the guilt and unplug.

I’d love to know if this resonates with you. Can you recall a time when you didn’t feel like you could take a break? What were some of the ways you found to switch off? Share in the comments below.