In keeping with my decision to come back to my initial blogging routes, it’s time for the December check in! Consider it the ‘letter from the editor’ that goes in the front of magazines every month, if you will.
Confession: I am on vacation as I write this. It’s weird that it’s hard to admit, and I’ve found myself stammering to people ‘but it’s a working vacation’ as I tell them that we’re heading for Costa Rica this week, like it’s a dirty secret. When you work from ‘home’ (wherever home may be), the idea of going on an actual vacation feels a little scandalous. Last year, we managed to get a solid 72 hours where we refrained from going online, but this year, we decided to not set any rules around what we could or couldn’t do work-wise. Rather than trying to pre-do a ton of work (which frankly, we couldn’t do because we’ve also been moving) or come home feeling super-behind, we’re just trying to combine enjoying our time here with staying on top of work and thinking about bigger picture stuff within our work. It’s worked out pretty well so far.
(In case you’re wondering, we went to Santa Teresa again—here’s my tips on how to do it on the cheap!)
I also managed to live some of my adolescent Blue Crush fantasies:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B53NiQelFXB/
So, it’s been a pretty swell trip. It’s funny what being away from home and being on a bit of a light training couple of weeks (‘deloading’ if you will) can do for the body and brain. I found very quickly that I was feeling much better, from digestion to waking up without feeling like a load of cortisol had been injected into my veins to my mood overall. Which, duh, vacation and beaches. But honestly, because we were still working a fair bit, plus doing a lot more long-term planning, I was surprised how much better I felt just dropping my stress and to-do list by maybe 15%. (That’s why I said in my newsletter this week that December is the time we really need to remember that it is OK to drop out of social plans, workouts, whatever seems to feel like just too much.)
Heading home and into the holiday season feels a little rushed and hectic, I’m not going to lie. With The OutdoorEdit Speaker Series in Collingwood happening in April, but us being gone coaching for most of the winter, the pressure is on to get the on-the-ground prep done before we head out, the second we land, it’s all systems GO for two weeks. It’s all good stress—but I know how quickly even good stress can morph into something unmanageable. The focus right now? Try to enjoy the pockets of quiet and the holidays with family and friends. I’ve realized I have a tendency towards future-thinking, where in those nice, down moments, I find myself thinking about the next thing due or booked, the next trip, the next stressor. And that means feeling stressed even when there’s objectively nothing to be stressed about. We can all be doing more to let ourselves stop producing so much damn cortisol and start recovering daily!
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