What good is that holiday if you have to wait 50 weeks, or maybe even longer, before giving yourself permission to relax and have fun? Sure, life requires us to put in a fair bit of hard work from time to time, especially if we’re parenting whilst earning a living, managing a household, actively contributing to local clubs, supporting extended family and volunteering with community projects.
Add to this the sheer organisation of being able to get away for that much-needed break including sorting out the who, how, when and where details of the holiday, the final push to get certain tasks finished in the days leading up to your holiday (“I really have to get this done before I go away”), not to mention the anticipation of the backlog of emails and tasks that we’re sure will pile up and greet us on our return.
We can invest a lot of time and energy and money into preparing our annual holiday. Many of us place a lot of value on it and we have high expectations that we will feel refreshed and revived at the end of it, ready to slog it out for another 50 weeks or so until we can do it all over again. Yet how many of us have experienced that sense of dread as our holiday comes to an end, the thought of returning to reality, to the ‘normal’ routine of work, school, study?
So I ask again “What good is that holiday if you have to wait 50 weeks, or maybe even longer, before giving yourself permission to relax and have fun?” How much wear and tear do you place on your mind and body in order to reach that annual goal of a holiday?
What do you say to the idea of creating the kind of life that you don’t desperately feel the need to have a holiday from? By choosing your reality here and now, you can choose to integrate some aspects of your holiday mode into your everyday routines. What is it about holidays that you simply long for? Maybe it’s a break from packing lunches, sleep-ins, less housework, flexible routines, site-seeing, family time …….. .
Whatever it is that you crave about your holiday, choose to adopt a new way of doing things or a new way of being so that this can become your everyday reality rather than your once a year investment. It doesn’t need to be a big dramatic change in your life, but it could be if it’s very important to you. Very often it’s the little changes that make the big difference to our health and wellness and happiness – maybe arranging to take turns to sleep in on weekends, setting aside time for a family picnic once a month, creating fun routines such as “Monday Milkshakes” or “Fun Fridays”, teach the kids to make their own lunches, cook double sized meals and freeze half for another night. The sky is the the limit – be creative and work out a plan that suits you and helps you to live the lifestyle you desire.
And because there is unseen power in writing things down and sharing with another person I invite you to write down or share your commitment with someone else. It’s when we are wholeheartedly committed to change that we are most likely to implement and sustain the necessary actions and attitudes that create the reality we desire!