How to spoil your summer holiday’ recipe

Summer is only a month away. The best time for holidays and vacations. Have you already planned how you are going to spoil your holiday? If not, I will share with you the experience of some of my clients. I’ll share with your the three tips on how to turn your holiday into a nightmare. In anticipation of the holidays, I wrote this comic article. Hopefully, it can help you stop and think twice, in case if you recognize yourself at some stage. If so, take a deep breath and start acting differently already now.

First phase: one month before the holidays

We suddenly remember that we need to finish or finalise something very important. We enter the race with ourselves: new important things, meetings, calls — and everything to the maximum. Why do we do this? “So, as not think about it during the holidays,” is the most common reason. If we want to spoil or even destroy our holidays, this is the best way to do it: let’s try to finish all our unfinished projects, even those that have been dragging on for over a year. We are supèrhumans, we can do it, even considering that we have not made a break during the entire year and our battery is almost at zero. If we have some strength left, we continue squeezing it out. If there is no strength left, we move to the next stage. There is no strength left and we realise that nothing works out the way we would like it. At this point fear emerges: the fear that we are running out of time. This fear provokes the feeling of guilt, pushing us to focus on negative emotions, plunging deeper into this state. If we are determined to spoil our holiday, let’s continue doing everything at once, without prioritising any tasks, and, preferably, scolding ourselves for missing all possible deadlines.

Second phase: a week before the holidays

If we follow this blueprint for spoiling our holidays, at this stage we’ll start experiencing the extreme degree of pressure and this condition becomes the norm. If the level of dissatisfaction with the results somewhat decreases, the level of stress and guilt begins to rise. These emotions begin to intertwine with the thoughts about holidays’ preparations and packing. At certain point we face the situation when with one hand we are dialing the phone number to arrange a last-minute meeting right on the day of our departure,while with the second hand we are packing a suitcase. This is the perfect picture of a person who wants to spoil their holidays. We may even get a desire to prove to ourselves that we are in charge of our lives and the result depends on us entirely. Only, the greater the level of stress, the greater the feeling of internal weakness and uncertainty that everything will work out. Once again, let’s forget about prioritisation and delegation and don’t even consider a possibility to postpone something. Let’s not feel sorry for ourselves; let’s drain our battery to the end.

Third phase: holidays

If we have “correctly” completed the previous phases, then spoiling the holiday itself will not be that difficult. We shouldn’t forget to leave our phone numbers to our colleagues: they should be able to reach us at any time, otherwise something might happen! Let’s neither forget to bring ours laptop, agendas, so that we can daily leave our families for a while in order to complete some urgent reports. We should keep thinking about work tasks as the “here and now” state doesn’t suit us. Unfortunately, such a holiday won’t be able to reduce our levels of stress and anxiety. Let’s face it: the condition of stress has become almost a chronic one. It is not so easy to get out of it. In this state, we do not get from our holidays what we need: strength, energy, positive emotions, inspiration and new ideas. All resources are spent to bring our system back to zero from far below. There is no mentioning about its recharging or refilling.

Once we have properly spoiled our holidays, we return to the working process exhausted, weary and with the complete lack of motivation.

If you, by any chance, recognize yourself in this college and cannot cope with this situation independently, please, sign up for a consultation at anna@grossleadership.com to create a healthy work-life balance.

Enjoy your holidays!

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players…”

(W. Shakespeare, As You Like It)

We believe that each and every one of us is not only a leading actor but first and foremost a writer of our own destiny. Overwhelmed by life events, we may unintentionally forget that we are the sole playwrights of our own lives. We may even unwittingly drop or lose the thread of our unfolding life story. Then, we start questioning ourselves and let others do the writing for us. Doesn’t this happen to all of us occasionally? The best thing we can do is to resume the leadership as soon as we can: only we should write the play of our life!

With the renewed confidence and new skills, we design new perspectives. Coaching and training are the best instruments we use to achieve this goal.