108 Stop Letting Work Hijack Your Vacation

Work can hijack vacation when your brain equates dedication with constant availability. Liz Jolley shows how to plan work windows, manage your mind, and actually be present while you’re away.

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00:00:01
Welcome to the Great Leader Great Mom Podcast, where we trade in mom guilt and burnout for courage, calm, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolley, engineer turned life coach, mom of three, and founder of the School of Courage. Here we talk about leading at work and at home without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself.

00:00:20
And today is episode 108, and we are talking about how to go on vacation. Because it's summer, and probably your kids are out. There are trips on the calendar. Flights are booked. Some of you literally might be packing right now to go to the beach, and you're looking for the sunscreen. Is it expired or not? You're finding the goggles.

00:00:42
You're trying to see what actually fits the kids while trying to pack for yourself. And let's have the reminder about what is the goal for vacation. It's to create memories, to relax, to have fun, to come back more rested than when you left, and somehow not fall behind at work while you're on vacation.

00:01:11
We have this voice in our head that tells us we need to show our dedication to work even while we're on vacation, which ends up making vacation not feel so vacation-y.

00:01:11
Because we want to be present with our family. We want to laugh. We want to play with our kids. We want to sit by the pool, or on the beach, or in the mountains and actually enjoy being there. That's the whole point of why we spent money to go.

00:01:37
But then there's this part of our brain that's still at work, thinking about the emails that you didn't answer, or the meetings you're missing, or the project that's still moving and you're not in the room. The boss who might be wondering, “Why hasn't she replied yet? It's been ten minutes.”

00:02:01
And before you know it, you're totally not vacationing. You're more stressed out than before you even left the house. That is what we're going to talk about today: how to stop letting work hijack your vacation.

00:02:02
This summer, I had a client bring this up, and I thought, of course, this is the perfect summer topic because she is not alone. Many women are in this exact same tension right now in this moment of summer.

00:02:22
You want to go on vacation. You want to enjoy your family. You want to rest and get away and feel relaxed and no more stress. I hear so many people say this, but at the same time, your brain is telling you you should be worried about stepping away from work.

00:02:44
And it's not always because the work itself can't wait. It's really because we're worried about what other people are going to think about us while we're on vacation. We worry that people are going to think we're not as dedicated, that our boss is going to think we don't actually care, that you might seem like you're not committed enough to this project.

00:03:04
We worry that people are going to think we're less reliable. We're not super high-performing. And then our brain does this lovely thing where it goes and finds all the evidence as to how this is true. We should definitely be worried and be afraid.

00:03:04
Our brain offers these unhelpful comparisons like, “My coworker never actually takes vacation. Maybe I should do that.” Or, “My old boss answered emails within five minutes of me sending them one while they were on vacation.”

00:03:24
And your brain tells you, “Maybe I just shouldn't go. Maybe I should stay home. Vacation is a mistake.” And then you feel terrible.

00:03:24
And now your vacation has turned into not only a performance review, but almost a test of how dedicated you are.

00:03:24
So you're trying to tell yourself to relax while you're on vacation, sitting there at the pool or on your hike, but your brain is telling you you should be working, and those thoughts are crazy-making. That is exhausting.

00:03:52
And that's where so many of us get stuck. We end up working during our vacation, not in a clean, intentional, planned-out way, but more from a place of guilt and fear and hustle-based tension.

00:04:13
And the way this shows up is we're checking our email from the hotel bathroom. We're answering just one more Teams or Slack message while the kids are swimming or running over to grab something. We open our laptop for just one real quick email to send, and that turns into an hour of wading through all the emails and getting distracted by everything else that comes at us.

00:04:39
And then comes the guilt because we're actually working, and our kids are saying, “Mom, come in the pool with us,” and you tell them, “Just one minute. I just want to get this one thing done.”

00:04:39
And after, like, ten times, your kids stop asking. They just go and have fun without you.

00:04:39
So then we feel guilty because we're working and we're not hanging out with our family, but then we're feeling guilty as well because we're not actually really getting caught up. We're just putting out fires.

00:05:04
So we've created this total lose-lose situation for ourselves, which feels awful.

00:05:04
So how do we solve this? Let's just start out with the actual problem here. The problem isn't that you have work while you're on vacation, because work is your circumstance, and that is neutral.

00:05:04
The part that's causing all of our struggle is the story we tell ourselves about work while we're on vacation.

00:05:32
And for some of us, depending on our job, or the role we're in, or the team, or the season, we may choose that we want to really work while we're on vacation. And that's okay too. That's neutral.

00:05:32
But the problem is the stories we make up on this trip about that work. We let all our default thoughts run the show on vacation, and this terrible, unconscious stream of stories just creates our chaos and our frustration.

00:05:57
Because let's get real: on default, our brain never says, “How can I be present and intentional today with my time?” Your brain is thinking, “How can I stay safe?”

00:05:57
And when I say safe, it depends because your brain could be thinking, “How can I show that I'm available? How can I respond fast? How can I not disappoint anybody? How can I not fall behind or in any way give people the essence that I'm slacking? I don't want to give anybody any evidence to think that I don't care or I'm not a part of this team.”

00:06:21
So when we don't create a plan for our brain, our brain goes crazy and just does this to ourselves all day and night long. And then we end up not on vacation. We're suffering throughout our vacation where we should be relaxing, which is literally the opposite of what we want.

00:06:21
One of the key problems here is you are trying to be two places at once. You're beating yourself up in both of these places.

00:06:38
When you're with your family, part of you is thinking about work and beating yourself up. When you're working while on vacation, part of you is thinking, “I should be with my family.” Lose-lose situation all around.

00:06:59
So no matter what you're doing, your brain is telling you that you're doing it wrong. Do you see how unwinnable the situation that you've created is?

00:06:59
This is not a vacation problem or a work problem. It is a brain problem. We have got to surface these thoughts and clean them up, and then decide consciously how we're going to show up at work.

00:07:23
And you can do this right now, even if you're already on vacation. The way we do this is we use our prefrontal cortex, the amazing part of our human brain, and we decide ahead of time how we are going to spend our time.

00:07:23
The key to all of this is 24 hours in advance. And if you haven't even left on vacation, plan it out before you even go.

00:07:42
You literally decide how you're going to work and when you're going to work. One example would be: “I want to work twice a day, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon before dinner.”

00:07:42
So you literally make a calendar commitment to yourself on vacation. Yes, I know this feels terrible, but go with me here. It's going to feel a heck of a lot better in the end.

00:08:09
You decide, “I'm going to work 7 to 8 a.m., and I'm going to work 3 to 4 p.m. before we shower and get ready for dinner activities.”

00:08:09
And maybe it's every day. That's totally fine. The secret here is you are deciding in advance.

00:08:09
And so what's so magical is when 7 a.m. comes and that voice in your head, or even your family, says, “Mom, why are you getting up? Why are you doing that?” And you're saying, “This is my time to work. I've committed to working this time, and that's it.”

00:08:30
And you just follow through and do the work for an hour.

00:08:30
It sounds so simple, but it's so powerful because then when that hour is up and it's 8 a.m., it's vacation time. And you're going to tell your brain every time it's like, “Yeah, but what if they responded?” You're going to say, “I'm vacationing now. That response can wait till 3 p.m. when I'm back working here at the pool.”

00:08:54
It's you managing your brain, not letting that default part of you run wild. This is how you get intentional about creating the vacation that you really want, which is vacationing and resting, while also creating a time for you to do the work that you need to do to stay on top of things.

00:08:54
And probably it's not going to be a full eight hours, right? So you're not going to get everything done, but you're very likely going to be able to do all the most high-priority things you need to do that make you settle a bit and not feel so behind when you get back to work.

00:09:26
What's going to be interesting is when that 7 a.m. time rolls around and it's time to work, your brain is going to tell you, “I just need one more cup of coffee,” or, “I just don't know if I'm ready to get out of bed.”

00:09:26
And you're going to tell yourself, “Nope, now is my time to work.” And you're going to sit down and you're going to go through your email, and you're going to keep telling yourself, “What is actually the priority for me to get done in this time?”

00:09:49
Not every single thing that feels urgent is actually important and what you need to focus on. Stay dedicated and with yourself to prioritize what actually matters.

00:09:49
You're not there to do everything all at once in this hour. Don't overcommit. Focus in on what matters. The moment 8:00 rolls around, you're closing your laptop. Now it's vacation time.

00:10:14
This tension has come to us because we've confused dedication with constant availability. And these are not the same thing. You can care deeply about your work and about your job and your team and still take vacation.

00:10:14
Do you actually want to be the person who never goes on vacation? No, because sometimes we think those people are crazy. Like, why aren't you using your four weeks of vacation? That's insane.

00:10:34
You can be a high performer and not answer emails immediately. Think of the self-trust you are going to build by dedicating intentionally time for work and time for vacation.

00:10:34
This could apply to your home life when you're back from vacation. How are you going to work and be present in both home and work? Staying focused, not worried about one while you're at the other.

00:10:53
And I know you might have a work culture where everybody brags about how busy they are and how little vacation they take, or how important their project is so they can't leave.

00:10:53
That's just lack of boundaries and not self-trust or deciding what you want intentionally and following through. You get to decide how you want to show up for yourself, how you want to show up for others, and your work.

00:11:14
This is not about being careless. This isn't about abandoning your team or your project and just tapping out and saying, “Good luck, everybody. I'll be back in two weeks.”

00:11:14
This is about clean communication before you leave and knowing intentionally what requires your attention. This is you being your Grounded Self.

00:11:37
And I will say, people are probably going to be disappointed. But are you willing to let them be disappointed instead of disappointing yourself? Are you willing to let people be wrong about you?

00:11:37
Like if they think you're not dedicated, and you know you are because you bring the value and you are hardworking and you contribute at the highest level, it doesn't mean that you have to work every single minute of every single day to be a high performer.

00:12:00
So here's the way to get tactical about this.

00:12:00
Before you go on vacation, define what enough means for you before vacation starts. Maybe it is that 7 to 8 a.m. and 3 to 4 p.m., but you get to decide what enough means, and you decide intentionally.

00:12:23
Second, put it on your calendar. Yeah, I know on vacation it will be freeing, I promise. Don't leave it vague like, “Well, I hope it just happens,” because that doesn't work.

00:12:23
The third is you're going to decide what you're going to do during those work windows. Prioritize what matters. It doesn't mean you're going to sit down and try to do every single thing that comes your way, because then you're going to get distracted and you're going to lose all track of time and not get done what you actually want as a priority.

00:12:45
Fourth, when your vacation time starts, you put the work away. You close that laptop and you go into vacation mode, all in, 100%.

00:12:45
Fifth, remind yourself that being unavailable is not the same as being irresponsible. Sometimes being unavailable is exactly what allows you to come back more grounded, more present, and more useful in the job you're in.

00:13:10
So let's be intentional. When we go on vacation this summer, when are you going to work? What are you going to work on? And then how are you going to answer your brain when it tells you, “Yeah, but that's not good enough?”

00:13:10
Decide in advance. Manage your mind. And this is going to be the most amazing vacation you've ever had because you're going to be actually vacationing and come back rested because you've been present with your family, and you've actually gotten quite a bit of priority work done because you decided in advance.

00:13:34
So don't let work hijack your vacation this summer.

00:13:34
If you want a deeper dive into concepts like this, where we learn these things through our actual experience, check out the School of Courage. Go to LizJolley.com/membership and check out what we do in the School of Courage.

00:13:52
With that everybody, I wish you an amazing week and happy vacationing. I'll see you guys next time.