London Calling
I’m in London on vacation for a few days, and then meeting up with some friends in Stockholm. It’s become cliché at this point, but there really is no substitute for travel to reset your mind and get a new perspective on things.
Why is that, though?
We all get wrapped up in our day to day, focusing on what “the machine” wants us to do and what we internalize as what we MUST get done. It’s very hard to disconnect from that, and understandably so. We focus on what’s in front of us, and what matters. And in our capitalist society, yeah, it absolutely does matter.
But the way our minds work, it becomes very easy to lose perspective and get TOO focused. Too narrowed. Too fixated on the immediate stressors. With that comes the risk of building them up to be far more impactful than they probably are. And that leads to stress, which impacts our minds, our work and our health.
So how do we break out of that mode? The answer lies in understanding and shifting our perceptions and perspective. (You’re gonna see that a lot in these posts, it’s the primary underlying theme of what we do and how we help clients.) And a GREAT way to do that is to change your surroundings and circumstances. Often, you’ll hear that it’s helpful, during times of work stress, to take a walk, or chat with a colleague, essentially resetting and getting away from the situation. Think of travel as doing that on a larger scale.
Putting yourself in a different circumstance forces you to re-set. Everything changes around you, and you end up processing decisions that you normally take for granted. What’s for breakfast? Where is breakfast? Is there breakfast? Your routine is gone, and you have to re-engage with the world differently. You encounter new opportunities, new decision points, and you consciously think through your actions more deliberately.
Over time, you get into a new routine or at least pattern of behaviors, and then a certain comfort zone with your trip. We like to call this ‘vacation mode.’ And that’s a GREAT time to think about what’s going on back home. You can reflect from a comfortable distance and try to work through some of your issues or key decisions from a level of abstraction that is often helpful.
To be clear: I’m not suggesting taking your laptop on vacation and setting up a remote home office. I’m just saying, take bite size chunks and think through things while you’re in a positive mind set. View the challenges as opportunities (I never said there wouldn’t be more clichés here), and you’ll come up with different solutions than you would sitting in the midst your day-to-day back home.
If you’re interested in hearing more about this, contact us about some coaching opportunities. I’d love to hear from you, and see if there are ways that we can help.
