Are vacations breaks from hard work and dedication or glimpses into your perfect day?
This week we have been talking about how stressful life is and how we can make a plan to change that. With summer just around the corner and the world opening up more than it has in the past 2 years, vacations are going to be on everyone’s mind!
I mean, who doesn’t love going on vacation? You don’t have to work, you get to wake up when ever you like, you are somewhere new or experiencing somewhere familiar in a new light, and it is essentially a break from everything that causes us stress. For many of us it is also a chance to really focus on what they just don’t have the time for in every day life and you finally get to enjoy all those things that you’ve worked really hard for and hope to one day enjoy 24/7!
The Lion Isn’t Chasing You
When we plan vacations, we usually think of things like finding the best deals on plane tickets, using our credit card points effectively, and making sure that our loved ones are gonna get the most out of their vacation. Even in a time where we are supposed to focus on creating a relaxing environment, we tend to make it as stressful as buying a car during the chip shortage.
We do this because we all suffer from the “A Lion Is Chasing Me” syndrome. Each of us spend everyday with a certain level of stress. We all feel like there is a certain amount of pressure to always work and succeed that keeps us a little bit on edge. It’s a little voice in your head that nags at you while you’re watching Bridgerton to check your email at 10pm!
Being someone who has started a business from scratch, I’m with you. If I hear the right notification bell or feel that phantom buzz of the phone on my thigh, 18 bells go off in my head that it is time to act. When I took my first vacation as a gym owner, it was so bad that I found myself just glancing at my phone every 5 minutes like clock work without notification. Why? Because I felt something was going to go wrong without me and the fear anything going wrong was ruining the time I needed to relax and worse the time of everyone I was on the trip with.
I bring all this up, because when we plan our vacations, we need to be focused on creating an environment where we are aiming for our perfect day. If you work for someone, it is up to your boss to make sure that they have a business that can support you taking the breaks you deserve! If you go on vacation and your responsibilities can’t be split up while you’re away on your well deserved R&R that is a lesson for your boss to learn, not you. If you’re a business owner and have made it through your Founder’s Phase (you are at the point where you can support other careers with your business), you need to go on vacation and let things break. You need to see what happens when you’re not there so you can improve and you need to take your vacations so that you have the right head space to return to those mistakes and correct them with the right attitude!
Your Vacation and Your Perfect Day
Now that we have that important first part of framing out of the way, let’s get to enjoying that relaxation!
When you’re on vacation, it’s a great time to really try out stuff from your perfect day! After all, if that is what makes you happy, why aren’t ya doing that while you’re on your vacation? So, go ahead and look back at the first perfect day. Does your perfect day involve being in the mountains or by the water? In a city full of night life or the country full of nature and fresh air? This is a good place to start when picking that place to visit. If you hate being in the city, why on earth would you plan a trip to New York City? That’s not a break, that’s heading further into Stress Ball Mode!
Next as you plan, does your perfect day involve being busy with constant activity or just doing 1 or 2 things and that makes you content? For me, I want to walk up with the sun, so I’m gonna make sure I choose activities that don’t require me to set an alarm to do while on vacation! Does it mean I won’t see a sun rise over a volcano in Hawaii? YUP! But, it also means I won’t be the grumpiest guy on the tour to see it.
Does your perfect day involve you feeling fit and healthy? Since you’re reading this email, chances are that you really like group classes and talking with people! Did you know that there are 10,000+ CrossFit affiliates across this big blue marble and nearly all of them accept drop-ins if you’re from another CrossFit gym (which you are!)? Picking a class time that is relaxing for you to get a fun sweat on with a new group of people is a great way to continue working toward that healthy goal while not adding stress and helping you have more piece of mind when you have that inevitable daily cheat meal on vacation!
(Did you know: That when you go on vacation and are a Vegvisir Athlete, you can have us program remote workouts for you if you don’t have access to a gym but still want to get in shape? ALSO NEW THIS SUMMER: as a Vegvisir Athlete, if you drop-in to another CrossFit gym while on vacation and send us the receipts for it via email to vegvisircrossfit@gmail.com, we will credit the value of those drop-ins towards your next month’s membership up to 50% of your monthly dues for that month? Checking out other gyms while on vacation is a fun and exciting experience that can help keep your gain train chugging along!)
How much alone time do you have? Going on trips with loved ones is one of the best experiences we can have, but sometimes you just wanna be quite by the beach! if you are someone that schedules to the tee, make sure that you have some time where you are just going to do something you enjoy on your own! Whether that’s something like going for a walk, relaxing by the beach, sitting in the hotel room watching the NHL playoffs because the bar is filled with Maple Leafs fans (Go Bolts!!), or what ever your heart desires, make sure you are doing things that bring your joy and relaxation!
Implementing That Plan!
Everyone plans their vacations to some extent! It’s just a matter of if calendars and alarms stress you out the extent that you should.
If you are one with the planner, then go ahead and plan everything you wanna do before the vacation! Prioritize it and don’t overlap anything that will distract you from doing those activities that bring you joy. Make sure you have your phone set to do not disturb mode especially during those times and be in the moment.
If you’re like me and being on a time table is the antithesis to you having fun. Then have some priorities set out for the day and just build your day as you feel around 1 or 2 scheduled things. Things like events, classes, and tours all require you to be somewhere at a certain time. Things like eating, walking, and leisure activities all have a little more flexibility to them, so don’t over plan your day and just get ready to do that one thing you plan for the day! For me I plan my days around a tour or something and then pick a CrossFit class a I want to go to that is a good amount of time before or after that activity. The rest of the day is free flowing and can be what ever we want it to be!
Learning From Your Perfect Day Trial Run
The last thing about vacations is to analyze what you enjoyed and didn’t. Every vacation you go on, there are things that we thought we would like and didn’t. There’s also plenty of things we get dragged to and we end up loving! Just take a mental note of these things and add them or remove them from you perfect day!
Over time our tastes and opinions change. A big change in the norm, like a vacation, is a great way to really explore ourselves and the lives we are building! If you loved every part of that vacation, make sure you set aside the resources and time for you to do that again in the future. If you hated part or all of that vacation, what parts didn’t you like? Add to your plan something that remedies or removes that problem from your day in the near future. If it isn’t something that brings you joy in some way, you should definitely be making a plan to remove that from your day at some point!
So, go have fun planning that vacation. Just don’t lose sight of what really matters! You deserve time to relax and enjoy everything you’re working hard to build! No one has the right to take that from you and not even yourself. We hope that you have plenty of fun planned this summer and have already had some amazing perfect day hours this week!
To talk with a coach today, click the link found HERE to schedule your No Sweat Intro