UnWind Your Life

Often we consider vacation as a time to unwind and relax, shut it off and shut it down.  

If you have created a lifestyle that winds you up, I can see why vacations and time away from work as morphed into what it has become, and why work life balance is even a talking point.

Work and life should be in harmony. Neither work or non- working activities should be creating so much tension that you need an escape from it. Hopefully we understand and know, that is not the goal.

In my post about work life balance, I write about how work life balance is not the goal. It’s one of the main reasons so many people are tense and stressed out. Trying to create balance requires balancing multiple activities at the same time. When you’re at work you should be there fully, (read work life and the balance). There are special causes that I set in my life that I call superseders that override everything, but for the most part I live in the present moment. 

In no way am I implying that every minute of my life is harmonious. The point I am making is that, the goal for my life is to live a full, prosperous, harmonious life, and by understanding the goal, it allows me to self correct before I am full of stress and anxiety no matter the situation.

Living in the moment allows me to fully embrace what ever I’m engaged in. At work I’m fully all in, but I take breaks and check completely out. This allows me to control the stress triggers in my day. I sometimes walk outside, or I may pull out the iPhone and edit vacation videos, or write (which I do most of the time). Not only do I implement routine breaks from work task, I implement routine breaks during non-working task, even while I am on vacation.

How dare I do such a thing to my family? Vacation is an escape from the norm, the real world, your life. Your family deserves all of you. You must create balance. Shut every it off, shut it down, shut it out!

Side Bar for a minute.

Let me clear up something, do you remember those superseders I spoke about in Work Life and the Balance. Well those are my family. At work or on vacation are on the coach watching television, being full engaged means I am all in.

When my superseders come on the seen, and require my attention I go all in. At work, at home, at any where, doing anything, they take priority. I have constructed my life that way. No job, no show on television, no place, no other persons, or other things are going to take priority in my life over my wife and my children.

Ok I'm Back (smile).

Regardless if I’m at work, at home, or on vacation, I implement breaks into my life. Not all the time, but enough to ensure I don't crash and burn. Too much of anything can cause wind up/burnout.

For example on vacation I am active. I have young children so relaxing is out of the question for the most part. There are periods or pockets of time that I write. I know a lot of people would consider this work because as well as being a quality engineer I am an aspiring writer, and in order to become a successfully published writer, I approach writing like I approach my job with dedication and commitment.

But I don't consider vacations an escape from my life. For this guy, vacations are not an escape, they are days I do something different than most days. Just like weekends are days I do something different that I do most days of the week. The activities change, but the process is the same. This approach allows me to never seek balance.

Think about it, to be good at what we do for a living, based on the amount of time most of us invest, it is unrealistic to think you can devote that amount of time to every area of your life. Some counter this argument with, "it's not a time metric as much as it is the quality of the time spent that creates the balance". Which I counter with the quantification of quality time. How is quality time quantified in comparison to non-quality time. Why on earth would someone intentionally implement non-quality time into their life is still a mystery to me.

In summary, the point I want to get across here is that seeking balance, building a life of highs and lows, or living for 2 days out of 7 or 3-6 weeks out of 52, is not, or should not be the goal. Full life expression is what I hope we are all after. 10 minutes of writing, that chops into my data analysis does not balance my day and it doesn't have too. Those 10 minutes of writing fills my life for 10 minutes, and that's all it has to do.

This guys, perspective is not intended to define life for you or anyone else, but I do hope I can give you something to think about. Thanks for listening.

Follow me on LinkedIn at: #coreythequaltiyguy