How to Create a Holiday Mind-Set at Home

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…Including you.” –Anne Lamott

Covid has taught us you can have every great intention to take some time off, but life seems to have other plans.

For me, this was a trip to Italy to attend a cousin's wedding in 2020. Apart from the disappointment of not seeing the family, I was upset about the idea of what the trip would give me.

A new location offers a fresh headspace and an opportunity to truly relax and unwind.

Technology can solve the connection piece to an extent, but not the headspace piece.

Not being able to go meant I had to reflect on creating the same mindset from home because travel was not in my immediate future. I couldn’t rely on something external to permit me to have some recovery time.

A holiday is more than an unfamiliar environment; it’s a permission device.

When you are on holiday, you have the space to design your days free of structure and allow them to unfold organically. There is never a fear of wasting time or spending it on the wrong activities.

However, the minute you arrive back to your regular routine, that calm mindset disappears when you have finished unpacking. The solution?

“Design your life in such a way that you would never need a vacation from it”- Boruch Ackbosh

Here are some ways to reframe working from home, so you never need a vacation from your average workweek:

Cultivate an alternative way of being.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” –Sydney Harris

The pandemic within the pandemic is this thought process of ‘I should be’. When you are working on one task, there is a mental tug of war that you should work on something else.

When you are with family, you feel guilty that you should work and vice versa. This guilt and distraction prevent you from enjoying the activity at hand because you are constantly second-guessing if it’s the right thing to do.

If you’re on holiday, do you lie on the beach and think to yourself, ‘Is this the right thing to do now? Maybe I should rather go for a walk?’. Never!

You are always content and present in your decision. You don’t have a mindset of time scarcity because you know you can read your book or go for a bike ride after the beach.

There isn’t the fear of running out of time. You have the headspace of time abundance.

How would it change your world if you could operate like this now?

What’s your first thought when you wake up? So much to do! I don’t have enough time! This negative thought pattern immediately spikes your cortisol levels and triggers a stress response. 

Rather than starting your day from this anxious state, ask yourself how you can design your morning so you can achieve the same calm mindset as if you were away?

Perhaps you may need to wake up earlier to create this space, but the point is to insert activities that put you into a peak state for the day such as meditation, yoga, exercise or journaling.

If you are not triggering yourself and setting your intentions for the day ahead, you will be at the mercy of everyone else’s urgencies and emails.

You should be able to look forward to your mornings every day and let go of the belief that you are only allowed to do this when you are away. 

A location cannot be your only permission device. You need to give yourself permission.

I wake up at 5 am every day and spend an hour on yoga, meditation and journaling. It is an hour I deliberately carve out to focus on myself, and I do it guilt-free because the rest of the day becomes about everyone else.

I may not always feel like it, but I do it irrespective of my feelings because I know the impact when I don’t.

Understand where your time can’t go.

“Lose an hour in the morning and you will spend all day looking for it” — Richard Whately

If you are experiencing the time scarcity mindset, start by planning your week before you are in it, but with a new spin. Start with where your time cannot go. 

For example, if you have kids — schedule their lessons, homework, extra-mural activities, and your daily zoom call with your team. In this way, you can see what gaps are remaining in the week. Now — insert your self-care blocks, work blocks, housework blocks, etc.

If you don’t consider all of this, you set yourself up for failure and frustration because the narrative becomes very self-critical.

Having a clear and realistic view of the time available to you will enable you to manage your time better and not panic when something comes up unexpectedly.

This is critical for when unexpected interruptions arrive. You have the reassurance that there is more than enough time over the week to complete your tasks.

Less is more.

‘The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities’- Stephen Covey

On my first trip to Paris, I dragged my husband around to tick the boxes of the famous sites and what you should see. At the end of our first day, we were exhausted. I was so focused on getting through the list that I didn’t enjoy the activities truly.

He then took charge of day two, and we only went to one museum in the morning and spent a few hours there appreciating it.

The lens of fewer but better has changed how I travel, and I have adopted this approach to my work. I focus on a maximum of three enormous tasks in a day and give them my full attention and energy.

Most of us have a problem not being busy because we measure our self-worth by the number of achievements we stack up in a week. Or if we aren’t running around ‘busy’ all day, then we must be useless.

My kids love the Mr Men book series. Mr Rush, who is always too busy and rushing everywhere — to the point where waiting for the toast to brown was too frustrating — decided its time for a holiday.

So off he goes on his beach holiday. The last page is him relaxing on the sand — having just done his 15th swim that day, and that was before he had breakfast. It makes me laugh. How true is that for most of us? ‘Wow — I am having such a productive holiday! I am not wasting a minute!’

Bring that awareness into your day and aim for less, but better.

Schedule your time ‘as if.’

“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.” –Mark Black

How many times have you heard yourself say — ‘When things are less hectic, I will take some time off or start that exercise routine’.

There will never feel like a suitable time. Consider the last time you took leave. When the day finally arrived for you to close the laptop, you were so stressed because it felt like it came at the worst possible time.

We are kinder to ourselves when we are not in our typical environment; you know the ‘area code’ rule. That massage you would have allowed yourself on the trip — what’s the equivalent self-care you can do for yourself at home irrespective of what is in your calendar?

Maybe taking an hour at 11 am to read a book in the sun or go for a long walk. Can you block off a Thursday afternoon to work on a painting, scrapbook, learn a new language or create a masterpiece in the kitchen?

I’m not saying neglect your work responsibilities, but create space for activities you can look forward to. Schedule something at a random time to take your mind to a different place and recover from the daily grind.

I can guarantee that you will feel more energised and be more productive with these mini gaps if you allow yourself to enjoy the activities free of guilt.

The most successful people do not have less to do than you. They are meticulous about building in recovery time along the way to have the energy to be successful.

Introduce variety and novelty.

“Thinking less and becoming more relaxed is, surprisingly, enough to positively change things” — Tim Grimes

My philosophy is life is too short for a poor meal when travelling. Part of the excitement of going away is seeking those hidden gems and apparent ‘hole in the wall’ places that land up being the locals’ best-kept secret.

It creates a culinary adventure, never quite knowing what to expect. So how can you create the same sense of novelty and variety in your hometown?

· Seek new coffee shops and hidden gems to work in weekly — of course, adhering to all Covid safety regulations.

· Take yourself out to the country for a long working lunch — work is no longer a location but an activity.

· Change your environment — rearrange the furniture, paint the walls, change rooms after lunch, or work outside for a change of scenery.

Choose your words.

“Words are powerful — and your mind is listening.” Marisa Peer

One of my coaching clients spent a month working in another city last year. She was quite apprehensive about it at first, but the results were astounding. The days unfolded gently; she went for a daily walk on the beach and never stressed about work. She got it all done.

When she arrived back home, her anxiety went through the roof, and she battled to sleep. Nothing had shifted from a work perspective, the only difference was her location. 

A different location gave her permission to operate in a different mindset.

To shift her headspace from overwhelm and tension, I asked her to keep a thought journal for a week. 

She noticed her mental chatter was very destructive using words such as ‘rush, hurry, quickly.’ You know what I’m talking about — ‘I’m just going to check my emails quickly; I’m going to hurry and get some lunch before the next meeting’.

She kept reinforcing a message of time scarcity through her language, which triggered her constant fear of losing control of her days.

The way forward was to plan her week before she was in it to see there is more than enough time available to her. She also adopted words like ‘savour, enjoy and appreciate’.

This subtle shift brought her from intense anxiety to a time abundance mindset.

Gratitude is a superpower.

“Happiness has to do with your mindset, not with outside circumstance.” ― Steve Maraboli

On the days where I slip into resentment or disappointment about not getting away or resisting our reality, I use gratitude to ground me. 

The daily act of practising gratitude and appreciating being healthy and safe ultimately outweighs the frustration of the current circumstances.

Gratitude for what I have every day — my health and being with my family — keeps me focused on what I can appreciate and not focus on what is missing or where I could be.

When you move into an anxious state, press the mental pause button and don’t go down the rabbit hole of negativity. Use gratitude to bring you into a mindset of contentment and appreciation, irrespective of your location.

Final thoughts.

“Wherever You Go, There You Are” — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Take a minute and visualise yourself at a beautiful holiday destination, the one that’s been on the bucket list for ages. See it in high definition and imagine how you would feel if you were there. 

Now bring that mindset back into the present moment and ask yourself what you can do to cultivate a different way of being right now?

Perhaps stop checking your phone so often and logging into your emails every fifteen minutes. Break the habit of taking your phone into every room you go to, including the bathroom!

Notice the words you are using — ‘this is a nightmare, it’s too much for me, hurry, quickly….’ These are the commands you are giving your mind. Change the code and incorporate better words that subconsciously change your way of operating.

Drop the ‘should be’ mental chatter and permit yourself to create mornings and weeks you look forward to.

If you could transport yourself to your holiday destination next week, would you really enjoy it? 

Or would you arrive feeling anxious about what you are not doing and compulsively checking your phone every ten minutes in case you miss something urgent?

One of my favourite quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn said, ‘Wherever you go, there you are’. If you are tense now, who are you taking with you on the trip?

Practice gratitude and contentment today, and stop pushing out your happiness to someday when this is all over.

Covid-19 has shone a light on how little we can control the outside world, but you have a choice every day, in fact, micro choices throughout the day, to control your inner world.

Be kind to yourself, choose yourself and start making some profound changes now so that when the big day comes, and you can go on that trip, you will bring the version of yourself who will enjoy it.

Here’s to living fully now,

Warm wishes

Lori