Good energy on vacation
A client I have known for years recently returned from a summer family vacation and sent me a note to share some of her reflections. She is a successful Senior Manager in her organization and a devoted mother. (She is also a very private person, so for the purposes of this newsletter, I will call her Abby.) Over the past few years, Abby has worked hard at implementing the principles of Human Energy management into her daily routines and decided to apply these principles to her recent vacation. I love when clients share their breakthroughs and success stories with me, and I asked her if she would be willing to expand a bit to share her words in my newsletter. So please enjoy Abby’s reflections and take what inspiration you can.
Abby’s words:
Energy Management on Vacation – A Better Way to Vacay
It’s 3 o’clock on Saturday. I’m in my backyard resting in the sun, soaking up the last few days of vacation before returning to work Monday. I pick up my phone and start flipping through photos from our family summer vacation this past week and notice a big smile spread across my face. Although photos often appear picture-perfect, there are typically moments that are less so. I’m sure either as a child or as a parent; we’ve all been on at least one “we’re turning this car around” or “we’re packing up and going home early” threat vacations! But there was something different about this holiday. Every picture I looked at, I recalled how good I actually felt in each moment. I was happy. The kids were happy. My family was content. Peaceful. There was kindness and respect (for the most part…nobody’s perfect!). As I reflect on what made our time together so enjoyable, five elements stand out:
Movement & Play
We moved together every day! Although routine exercise is a part of my daily life, I like to let go of routines and schedules on vacation. I still went on a few runs, but I mostly took advantage of opportunities to exercise through play with my two kids. We had a lot of fun trying new activities or activities we don’t often do like: beach Spikeball; pool volleyball; tennis; bike rides; ocean and river swims; we even put on 20,000 steps one day doing a fantastic race style event with other families. Additionally, it was beautiful to see several kids flock to the action of a simple thing like tossing a football with their parents and friends at the beach.
No Screens
Screens and video games are part of our daily lives at home, but there were no screens on this trip. To my pleasant surprise, the kids never mentioned the absence of screens. They also never said they were bored. Instead, they easily found things to do like painting rocks, carving wood and sports activities. My son even commented on how his mood had improved without screen time (although he was right back on when we returned home!).
Good Food
My vacation brain says eat what you want when you want and load up on all things snack food when shopping for the trip! One of the most notable differences on this trip was limiting junk food and eating out at restaurants. We still went for ice cream, ate chips and snacked; we just didn’t make it the main event. Over eight days, we ate out a few times for a treat but otherwise ate whole food, homemade meals.
Limit Alcohol
My vacation brain also says drink what you want when you want and stock up on all thing’s beer, wine and spritzers when shopping for the trip! So, naturally, I still did this. Happy hours and dinner drinks with friends were a daily occurrence. The key was sticking to evening drinks only and not having too many.
Good Night’s Sleep
Because we followed the above list, every night, we all had a good sleep and woke up feeling rested – even during four nights on a blow-up air mattress in the tent!
Vacations are a time to let go of the daily norms, indulge and colour outside the lines a little. One of the nice things about this experience was that it never felt like restricting or limiting ourselves. We simply played, ate well, drank well and slept well. The only difference was that we didn’t excessively indulge. The mood was positive, we felt energized each day, and it made for a great vacation – with the added bonus of avoiding the post-vacation extra 5 Lbs and sluggish overeaten and overdrank feels!
Abby also shared that she genuinely went “off the grid” on this holiday even though she was just recently promoted to a more senior role.
I suspect that her commitment to not “splitting her energy” trying to stay on top of her email really helped make this vacation that much more special. Thank you for sharing your story with me Abby, so that I could share it with my people.
