Pen{g}sieve Vol. 12: Just play - how did I enjoy a work-free three-week vacation

The August newsletter did not come out because I took a 3-week vacation. This time I did not bring the work laptop, take any work calls, or check any work email or chat. It is an important personal milestone as it goes a long way from my workaholic past.

(We traveled in Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, and a bit of Greece. The old bridge of Mostar was one of the beautiful places we visited.)

From burnout to enjoying a work-detoxing break

My family usually traveled around the globe several times a year. In my previous job, arranging work around these trips weighed heavily on me. As my last company was not particularly keen on work-life balance and my job role was at the center of many decision-making, I often had to skip one or two long family vacations each year. And for the trips that I did manage to go on, I felt so guilty that I always checked work emails, took work calls, and even chaired meetings on the trips. While I was able to take some time off to be with the family, it was done in such a compromise that I was often stressed by the trips rather than relieved.

My non-optimal time-off reveals a much bigger problem. Unable to set clear boundaries between my work and life, I exerted myself for so long that I lost my natural ability to enjoy guilt-free play.

If you ask what I truly want in my new job but am unsure of attaining it, I would say time freedom and, more specifically, going on all my family trips. Initially, taking three weeks off on this job seemed impossible to me. But as the family trip was planned (whether I joined or not), I decided not to repeat my past regrets. To make it work, I planned to stay in touch with the team while away.

Luckily I told my manager, somewhat apologetically, my planned time off. Upon hearing my plan, my manager advised me to unplug from work altogether. My immediate reaction was that’s impossible! Then I received the very best support I needed at the moment — “I will cover for you when you are away.” That was how I took a work-free three-week vacation.

The experience

At the start of the trip, I decided to be super mindful of this experience and treat it as an experiment:

• Would the work and the team be ok when I am gone for three weeks?

• What does it feel like to take a break without thinking about the job?

• How can I enjoy vacations 10% (or a lot) more?

• Are there real benefits to completely detox from work, or do I just come back even more stressed by the work left behind?

Unplugging from work is just the starting point

After the three-week experiment, I could confidently say that not thinking about work tremendously enhanced my trip experience. The contrast also allowed me to see the amount of toll work had exerted on me and my body -- for instance, the tightness on my shoulder and back completely disappeared.

But the real surprise of the experiment was that work was not the only factor that hinders an optimal vacation experience. Once I excluded work from the trip, other layers of constrictions revealed themselves, such as low energy levels, self-consciousness, or care-taking others’ experiences.

It turns out that, after so many years of exertion, enjoyment does not come naturally to me. It is a cautionary tale for those who work very hard now and delay everything fun to retirement.

How to enjoy vacations a lot more

I used to believe that expensive bespoke trips gave me good experiences. They do to some extent. But any trip can be more or less enjoyable depending on our inner states. Here are what made this trip a lot more enjoyable for me:

• The night before the travel, get a good rest to kick off the trip at a high energy level. I learned the lesson the hard way. I did not rest well before starting this trip. I was exhausted while flying to a different time zone, stuffed myself with junk food at the airport, and was indecisive on what to do during the flight. The first day of my trip in transit felt awful. I was surprised to find that enjoying one’s vacation was not as easy as I thought.

• Understand how my body functions during travel. Jet lag on the first day felt awful and gave me depressing thoughts. Not being able to sleep well can set off several nights’ poor sleep. And across time zones, my digestive system is a mess. This time I had the foresight to bring several supplements to help my digestion and boost my energy level. It turned things around in a single day.

• Do not care-take others’ experiences. I used to feel the need to make every family member enjoy the travel. The worry ruined my own. The AoA course taught me not be care-taking others’ feelings. It applies to family vacations too.

• Do not rush. One morning, our breakfast took a lot longer to order and we were late to meet the tour guide. While I informed the guide of our delay, I felt anxious waiting for the order and rushed to finish it once the breakfast arrived. The experience was a big contrast to the relaxing breakfast we enjoyed at the same cafe the day before. I realized that, in most of my adult life, I had rushed from one place to another and from one thing to another to get things done. Rushing ruins enjoyment. How can I slow down?

• Overcome perfectionism. I used to browse all the restaurants and hotels before making a choice. When we ate at the restaurant, I often got disappointed because the experience was not as good as I expected. Yesterday we went to a restaurant that the guide recommended. The food was good but not exceptional. Still, we enjoyed the meal together. I was surprised to see how much more I enjoyed the moments if I did not care what others thought.

• Enjoy the moment. Do not check social media, emails, browsing websites when I am out and about.

Lessons learned

Setting boundary

Certain things can only be learned by doing, and setting boundaries is one of those. The trip has taught me the lesson of setting boundaries — the boundary is to carve three weeks out of my work and then arrange everything around it. After the trip, I am more conscious of protecting my time and more comfortable saying No. Most of my FOMO is gone — if it is OK to miss out on three weeks’ emails and work chats, it is OK to miss a bunch of emails and work chats too.

Taking this trip is one of the boldest things I did on this job. Having done it once, I am more likely to act from a place of empowerment instead of compliance. I feel more confident that I can have control over my job experience and that it is possible to strive for success while staying true to my deepest wants.

Travel as a way to test my edge

Many of my deeper problems surfaced when I was out of my zones of familiarity. While traveling, I was a lot more sensitive to how I connected to my body and experiencing new emotional states gave me new insights. For instance, I discovered how energy levels had a significant impact on my daily experiences. I found out how hard it is for me to enjoy and how little play I have in my everyday life.

Importance of pacing

I used to feel the subtle guilt of wasting time to do nothing while traveling. We had many chill times on this trip — enjoy coffee and people watching at promenade coffee shops and take naps in the hotel. On the last day of the trip, the family chilled in a beautiful seaside hotel. The girls surfed the internet, and I watched an AoA recording and wrote a post about the course.

In retrospect, these chill times were the secret sauce that made this trip so much more enjoyable for the entire family.

What makes life enjoyable also makes work enjoyable

During this trip, I noticed many ways that worrying, rushing, perfectionism, comparing, self-consciousness, care-taking can make a trip a lot less enjoyable.  Isn’t it remarkable that what makes a vacation day enjoyable — pacing, being present, setting boundaries, good energy levels, being comfortable in one’s skin — are also what make a workday enjoyable?