Reflaction: Notice, connect, and challenge

In this week’s podcast episode, we look back at all the self-care experiments we’ve shared so far this year. If you’re a regular listener of our podcast you may have noticed some themes in these experiments. Themes that provide a wonderful framework for how we can approach any self-care challenge: notice, connect, and challenge. Notice a self-care challenge, share this with a colleague (connect) and consider one small step you can take to make this less of a struggle for yourself (challenge – with permission and imperfect action).

And it was this framework that helped me take some additional small steps, that, together with my permission to vacation when I vacation (which I shared in our previous newsletter), led me to create a pre- and post-vacation self-care 'work out' that maximized the restorative quality of my vacation.

In our last newsletter I shared how giving myself permission to vacation when I vacation led me to experiment with not checking emails during my vacation and the surprising difference it made in terms of how restorative I found my vacation. But I also noticed a self-care challenge. I put a lot of pressure on myself to respond to all the important emails prior to starting my vacation and I came back to a full inbox of emails as well as a full schedule of clients.

Connecting with colleagues helped me appreciate that I’m not alone in my vacation struggles and the solution for many of us is to simply keep checking emails during our vacations. Having experienced the benefits of an email free vacation I decided it was time to consider some small steps I could take to make this less of a struggle (challenge – with permission and imperfect action).

The next time my vacation was coming up I took some proactive steps to try and address the pre-and post-vacation pressure. Several days prior to my vacation I changed my voice message and set up my out-of-office email alerting callers to my upcoming vacation. I made a list of the clients who I thought would benefit from an appointment shortly before and/or after my vacation and ensured I had openings for them and I left white space in my pre-and post-vacation schedule.

Ultimately all these small steps gave me even more permission to vacation when I vacation and work when I work. Setting up my vacation messages a few days before beginning my actual vacation gave me permission to focus on responding to the more urgent voice messages and emails and permission, if needed, to leave the others until my return to the office. Having a list of prioritized clients for pre- and post-vacation appointments helped me be much more intentional about my pre- and post-vacation schedule and gave me permission to leave white spaces in my pre-and post-vacation schedule so that I could not only respond to emails and phone messages but also had spaces available to deal with unexpected events. To be honest, that was one of the few times when I felt my vacation didn’t come at a personal cost.

And like any new self-care routine, I haven’t always put this pre-and post-vacation workout in place. Sometimes my vacations still sneak up on me and I’m scrambling to get things done at work both before and after my vacation. But armed with self-compassion, I just remind myself that perfectionism isn’t the goal. It’s about noticing, connecting, and challenging (with permission and imperfect action) and using the data to keep taking steps in the right direction.

Where will your reflactions take you?