Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Disconnect from Work on Your Vacation

 

We all know we need vacations… time to rest and recuperate, enjoy our loved ones and have some fun. But all too often, being away creates stress for high-performing executives who dread coming back to loads of work that has piled up.

How can you truly leave work at the office while you’re on vacation, so you don’t spend your time away preoccupied or getting sucked into email and phone calls?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting strategies to help you do just that.  Let’s start with number one…

(1) Make the decision to completely disconnect from work.

We all know our electronic devices need to be recharged to work properly. And it’s a no-brainer that they charge more efficiently when we’re not using them. However, we often fail to grasp that to replenish our energy, creativity, resilience, determination, and focus – we too need to go offline.

It is often our underlying (and unexamined) assumptions that keep us from truly relaxing.

We’re conditioned to believe that the harder you work, the more successful you’ll be, and that taking your eyes off the ball (even for a day, let alone a week or more) can lead to things spiraling out of control. As a result, many of us have a hard time letting go.

We approach our vacations with one foot in and one foot back in the office, checking our phones and becoming preoccupied with work. In this state of mind, it’s easy to get sucked back into anything that appears to be less than optimal.

Few of us realize that the belief we can’t afford to let go is the problem, which is why so many struggle with how to disconnect from work on vacation. Perhaps in reality, this belief causes more problems than it solves. 

• Like your cell phone, which is constantly searching for a signal and downloading messages, you too are expending energy even as you try to recharge it.
• You become far more susceptible to distractions that take you away from what you are doing in the moment.
• And before you even leave, that belief will keep you from doing the preparation necessary to ensure that others can handle things without you while you are away.

Once you realize this underlying belief is the culprit, you can substitute it with a new truth.

You can begin to entertain the possibility that disconnecting will truly serve you (and your organization) and act in ways that make that true. And when you fully commit to a vacation that allows you to go offline, you are better able to prepare in ways that make that possible.

This leads to the next strategy, which I’ll be sharing with you in my upcoming post next week…

If you want to learn to infuse your work year-round with the same freshness and inspiration you feel after a good vacation, message me to learn about a new program I’ll soon be making available to a limited number of executives.