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Struggle to switch off? Try these three things
Holiday survival guide for people who can’t relax
Welcome summer! Longer and warmer days, plenty of sunshine and…holiday season! If you’re anything like me, the idea of taking a holiday has mixed feelings: excited to go somewhere new but people expect you to switch off and that can be harder than it seems.
For the last 28 years I’ve never really taken a proper holiday. I’ve technically been on vacation but didn’t really switch off. I’ve always set an aggressively ambitious target for the holiday for example approaching it as a physical training camp. Or to incubate a business idea. I change the type of work I’m doing rather than stopping working. This is all whilst secretly checking emails every day, responding to pings and joining a few meetings for my day job. So, it’s not really a holiday at all is it?
For 26 out of 28 years that approach worked (pun intended ;)) but eventually it caught up with me. I learnt the hard way what happens if you never ever take a holiday: burnout.
For the last few years, I’ve set about trying to take more refreshing breaks and I finally think I’ve cracked it. This blog is a survival guide for people who struggle to switch off.
