Why do holidays work?
Meet Joe. Joe is my fictitious client (created as an avatar of many who I work with).
Joe works extremely hard during the year, and often feels stressed. He doesn’t have great life balance during a typical working week. He always wishes that he did more exercise. He's slightly overweight and drinks too much.
When it gets to August Joe is desperate for his holiday. On holiday, he has a huge amount of rest, time with his family, does sport and swims in the sea. It is such a beautiful relief for him during this time to rebalance.
The relief comes, because his mind and body are relieved. They are both saying “thank heavens for slowing down, Joe. We were both about to give up on you”.
So the body gets some exercise, more fresh air and better food. The mind gets some time and space just to be, no over-thinking required and space to have fresh perspective.
And then the mind and body say “but why the hell are only allowed to flourish for 4 weeks a year? That’s crazy.”
And so there’s some questions I’d like to pose for you. What if you lived to enable your mind and body to flourish every day of the year? How would that feel for you? What would the vitality be like? And what would the impact to performance be?
Of course I don’t mean, you need to hangout all year like you do on the beach on holiday. But there definitely is a way to prioritise the health of mind and body every day as well as leading a busy work & family life.
And it all starts with ‘waking up’ - having a realisation of the importance of this stuff. This is not nice to have, not just nice to fit in when it’s convenient. No No.
On this particular holiday Joe had a big insight different to usual. This was a big juicy slap. So when Joe came back from holiday that’s what he did. He fundamentally changed how he lives and works. Healthy diet not as a diet but a way of life, no alcohol in the week. Time to journal, a little space to meditate. An agreed way of managing family life with his wife who also worked.
And Joe lived happily ever after, until he was a 101.
The end.
