Ep #12: How to Enjoy Your Vacation Twice as Much

episode summary

Want to double your vacation enjoyment this year? This week’s episode is all about boosting your holiday happiness! 

Join me as we discuss how to adjust your expectations, be more present during your vacation, and have a smoother transition back to the real world. Tune in and get ready to have your best vacation yet!

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For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.

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CHAPTERS:

0:04 - Maximizing Vacation Enjoyment

2:21 - Adjust Your Expectations

9:38 - Tips for Being Present on Vacation

14:05 - Ease Out & Ease Back In

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  Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hey friends, thanks for joining me today. It's summertime and hopefully you have at least one fun vacation planned. If not, I hope you can still squeeze one in. A staycation or a quick weekend away counts too.

  We're getting ready to head to Minnesota for our annual vacation. We have been doing the same place at the same time for 16 years in a row. When I was a kid, we went to a different lake but the same lake at the same time, same week with all my cousins until I was 40 years old. So I have a literally lifelong tradition of going to the lake in Minnesota as part of my summertime. Now my kids love it just as much as I loved it when I was a kid. All the kids, all the cousins, count down the days till Minnesota time and they have this bunk room where they sleep, where no adults are allowed, and thank goodness, because we don't want to go in there because it's gross and smells bad, but they absolutely love it. So I'm really looking forward to that.

  But something I hear from my clients a lot (and pretty much all the moms I know) is that vacation isn't always the most relaxing time. I saw this quote the other day that cracked me up. It said vacation with kids is a good way to get away from your sanity and relax not even for a second. I've definitely had that vacation. My kids were younger but I've definitely had that vacation. But if you don't have kids or you go on vacation without your kids, it doesn't mean that vacation will automatically be relaxing either. So if your summer is crazy and busy at work and home and vacation is your one chance to just really relax and enjoy time with your family or whoever you're vacationing with - your friends, yourself, that's kind of your only chance sometimes just to be. So, I wanted to create this episode to help you do just that. My hope is that by listening to this episode, you will double your vacation enjoyment this year. I don't know how we measure your vacation enjoyment and compare it to this year's, but just notice after you listen to this podcast and you go on vacation, notice if you enjoy your vacation more.

  So here are my tips for enjoying vacation more. Number one this is the biggest one and the one I'm going to talk the most about: adjust your expectations. I'm going to tell you what I mean by that I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it. Talk about some of the resistance you might have to that idea. The other thing is to actually be there and be present. We always talk about being present and a lot of times people will tell me, "I just want to be more present. I feel like it's a goal we all have, but I'm going to give you some tips for how to do that. And then my third tip is to build in a little time before and after your vacation for a little vacation from your vacation. One of the things I used to always do was try to make my vacation last as long as possible, but if you get home on Sunday night and you go back to work on Monday, that is miserable. So I'm just going to suggest some ideas for how you can make the easing out of work and easing back into real life easier.

  Okay, so let's get into step one for enjoying your vacation more. It is to adjust your expectations. Let me tell you what I mean by this. So suffering is created in the gap between expectations and reality. Suffering is created in the gap between expectations and reality. What that means is when you expect something to be one way, and in reality it's another, the suffering happens in the difference between those two things. So, for example, when you bring three books on vacation and expect your family to leave you alone so that you can soak up the sun and read uninterrupted, and the reality is you open one of the books and you read about 20 pages across 18 different tries to read. You suffer because you're so annoyed every time your expectation of being able to read and be left alone isn't met. So the expectation that you have there is that you should be able to have the time, be alone, and be able to read for some chunk of your vacation. The reality is you get interrupted all the time. So if you can adjust your expectation which you can do just in your own mind to be "if the kids are on vacation with me, I will be very unlikely to have much time where I get uninterrupted". So maybe you can expect that you could read, but maybe you can expect that you'll read a couple pages at a time. And maybe you'll think that you could get through part of one book instead of three books. And then, when reality happens and you do get interrupted all the time and you read part of one of your books, you're not as disappointed, because that's what you were expecting in the first place.

  Another example is my kids, who are 12 and 15, are able to pack their own stuff. I give them a packing list, they pack their stuff and my expectation is that they will have all the things on the list in their bags when we arrive. Reality is that at least one of them will forget an essential item. Like, for example, a tie when we were going to a wedding, or a swimsuit on a beach trip. So if I were to adjust my expectations to meet reality, I can't be disappointed if I assume that they'll pack most of what I have on their list and then we'll just buy whatever is missing. So my expectation previously was, if I put it on the list, it will be on our vacation. But the reality and my new expectation is, if I put it on the list and I don't double check their bags or I don't pack for them, then there will be some things missing. And when things are missing we will either live without them or get the thing that they're missing. Or let's say you're going on vacation with a friend or your spouse and you don't have kids with you and let's just say, let's pretend you're going on vacation with your husband. At home he's on his phone all the time checking work, emails, and ESPN.com, tiktok, whatever. But your expectation, since you're going on a trip with him alone, is that you just know he'll be fully connected and attentive, and he might even leave his phone in the room or look at his phone much less than he does at home, but in reality he continues with the same habit. He just checks his phone on the beach instead of on the couch. If you have the expectation that his behavior is going to be totally different because you're on vacation together, and then it isn't, you're the one who's upset. He's not upset, he's just doing what he usually does. But you're upset because you had this expectation that you just made up in your head that he was going to be different when you were on vacation than he is at home. So here's a little trick about how to adjust your expectation to be more realistic. If you ask yourself the question, "if I had to guess what my husband would do and I got a prize for being right, what would I guess he would do on vacation with regards to his phone? And your answer would probably be like he will bring his phone everywhere and look at it often maybe slightly less or the same amount as home. So, whatever your guess is of what might happen, make that your expectation. And then when he does look at his phone, you will be much less annoyed, which means you will be able to concentrate on the book you want to read or do whatever it is that you want to be doing.

  Now, often when I coach my clients about this, they want to hang on to their original expectation. They're worried that if they drop their expectations, they're allowing or encouraging behavior that they don't want. But your expectation actually has zero effect on the person's behavior. So just because I expect my kids to pack the items that are written on the list that I hand them doesn't make it any more likely that they actually do that. The only thing that happens is I suffer when they don't meet my expectations because I'm mad and disappointed. If I lower my expectation to, "yeah, let's just hope they get most of the big stuff, but we'll just grab whatever is missing. Here's what happens. First off, they don't know I've changed my expectation. I don't hand them the list and say, "Hey, I don't actually expect you to nail this task, but just give it a try". I hand them the list and tell them to pack it all like I normally do. So the private adjustment of my expectation hurts no one, but it helps me. You can still bring three books on vacation, but just having a realistic expectation that you won't get much reading alone will help. If and when that comes true, you can still hope your husband forgets his phone at home, but when he does use it, you're less likely to be annoyed.

  And now here's the question that I usually get: "But, Michelle, what if I want to address this phone issue with my husband or talk to my family about the fact that I want them to leave me alone and let me read? Totally fine, go for it. You don't just have to accept your family's behavior as-is. But what I would recommend that you do is talk to them beforehand, when neither you nor the person you're talking to is upset or angry, and just calmly say how their behavior makes you feel. And if you want to ask them to change it, you can absolutely ask them to change their behavior. Whether they do or not is totally in their control, and whether you get upset or adjust your expectations is in your control. So if you want to, you can talk to them about it ahead of time and maybe that will help. Maybe it won't, but still, trust me, just try changing your expectations and then tell me if your vacation was more enjoyable or not.

  Okay, so that was tip number one, which is to adjust your expectations. Tip number two is to be more present. I'm going to tell you my top three suggestions for how to actually be more present, and you can try one or two or all three of these when you're on your vacation and see which one works well for you. So when I picture myself being on vacation and I'm thinking about this trip that I'm going on to Minnesota, one of the things that we do is we just hang out a lot in my parents' yard, which is essentially the lake. Their lake is just right out their back door. And so as we're sitting there, there's an opportunity to talk to everybody or to watch the kids play in the water, or to go swimming, or do all these things. But sometimes I'll find myself like wandering off in my mind to other places or looking at my phone or doing something like that. So when you notice that you're starting to tune out and your goal is to actually be more present, you can use this tip to tune in with all five of your senses and just ask yourself the question, "what's something I see, what do I hear, what do I smell? Even what can I touch or what does the air feel like on my skin? and is there a taste? When I think about Minnesota, there's a bakery that we go to all the time, so when I think about a taste there, I think about a doughnut. So I probably would be tasting a doughnut as I'm going through this list myself. But this just really helps you bring your awareness from being inside your mind to being where you are, and especially if you have the opportunity to be in nature. You can do that 10 times in a row, and it could be different things every time to bring you back to the present. Another thing that usually takes people away from being present is especially later on during a vacation is that you start worrying and thinking about things when you get home, so like, how are things going at work? Or one of the things that I think in the summer is what are all the things I need to do this summer in order to get my kids ready to go back to school next year? Like, do I have all the doctor's appointments scheduled? Did I fill out the sports forms? What are they gonna need for clothes next year, etc. And I will just find myself randomly worrying about that mid-summer. A great way to manage that, when worries come up, is to actually schedule time to worry or to think about things. So if you find yourself thinking about work or your kids or some future thing that you're going to have to worry about or think about, you can actually just put it on your calendar. So, for example, I could just go put on my calendar for the Tuesday when I'll be back from vacation, make a list of everything I need to do this summer for the kids, and then that way I can stop worrying about it. In that moment I can go back to being present, but I haven't just told myself forget about it. And then when I do that and I don't write it down or put it on my calendar, I can't forget about it because my brain's like okay, but I have to remember that at some point. So schedule time to worry about it or think about things later. And then the third thing is use your phone or any kind of technology less. This is so obvious, but this is our number one go-to when we don't feel like being present is to look at the phone. And if you are not looking at your phone, it automatically makes you more present. When you're looking at your phone, you're present with your phone, not with the people around you. So when you're on vacation and you feel the urge to grab your phone - and my handsome man friend and I talk about this all the time, that it's such a automatic response, like every however many minutes, you just feel the search to look at your phone and see if you have any new texts or emails, when really none of them are an emergency and it's just like muscle memory habit to pick it up - so when you go to pick up your phone, just don't and see how it feels to sit with it and just be in the situation you're in and not pick up your phone. Another thing you can do is just put it in another room or, in my case, on this vacation I'm envisioning in Minnesota just leave it in my cabin. So when I'm out by the lake, I don't have my phone. There are no actual phone calls, texts, t here's really nothing that I need, but I always tell myself well, what if I want to take a picture or something? Okay, yes, often I do want to take pictures, but what would happen if I didn't take a picture and I was just present? That might even be better than having a picture of the situation.

  Okay, and then my third tip for enjoying your vacation. So we've got adjust your expectations, be more present. I just gave you a couple of ways for how to do that. And then my third tip is to plan to ease out and ease back in. So, the Michelle of old, when I was working in the corporate world, when I was planning to go on vacation, I would leave on Saturday morning, we'd take like a six am flight to fly to Minnesota, and that means I would probably be working until like midnight the night before and then I would start packing. So essentially, by the time I got on the plane in the morning, I would be exhausted, barely have gotten any sleep, still be thinking about work, sending those last minute emails, blah, blah, blah, and then we'd go on vacation. It would take me several days to get adjusted and relaxed to vacation, and then we'd stay until the very end And we'd come back on Sunday and I'd go to work Monday, feel overwhelmed, immediately overwhelmed, and we would have no food in the fridge. I have a ton of work emails to go through, we'd have dirty laundry and it just took - I feel like I had gotten to the point where I was relaxed and calm, a nd then that first day back just sort of ruined it all. It's like it never happened. And I worked with one of my clients on this specifically one of her goals, and actually she's going to be on the podcast in just a couple of weeks here my client, Jen Heal. We worked together to come up with a way to make her vacations more enjoyable, and one of the things that we planned, and one of the things that I've implemented into my own vacations too, is this idea to ease out and ease back in. So, for example, this year we're going to the lake on Friday. I'm not gonna work on the Friday that we're leaving and our flight doesn't leave until 10 pm, so I have the whole day with my kids to double-check their list see my earlier comments about why I might wanna do that, to get caught up on anything I need to do to plan to be out the next week for work, to get our house organized, to pack without feeling rushed, and then we'll get there that evening later in the evening, but we can sleep in in the morning and it will just be a nice, easy transition. And then, instead of coming back the day before I need to get back to work we're coming back on Wednesday night, so that will leave me several days to be able to do the laundry, order the groceries, do some meal prep, look through my work stuff, see what I've got to plan, et cetera, so that I can just ease back into regular life instead of feeling like I went from total relaxation to total craziness all in the space of just a few minutes.

  Okay, I really want to hear how your vacations go and I want to know which one of these tips was most useful for you and how you used it. So, as usual, you can reach out to me at Michelle Gauthier Coaching, you can DM me on Instagram or you can send me an email, michelle@michellegauthier.com. I would really love to hear from you. If you have any comments or questions, great to send them my way. I'd love to hear feedback from you. Also, by this point, you may have listened to some of the interviews that I have done so far. I have done an interview with my client Kari and with my client Lauren. Those are a couple episodes back and you probably are starting to get a feel for what I do when I work one-on-one with my clients. If what you've heard resonates with you, or even if you haven't heard those interviews and you just wanna learn more about coaching with me one-on-one, you can do that. There's a link in the show notes to set up a free discovery session consultation where we will talk about what's happening in your life. You'll tell me what's going on with you, I'll tell you about coaching, tell you what my approach is for coaching, and then we'll see if we're a good fit. So if you feel like you're ready to change your life, I am ready to talk to you. Thank you so much for listening and, as always, please leave a review if this podcast was helpful to you. That helps so much because we just keep on getting more and more listens and more reviews from people and we're still staying in that top 3%, which is amazing. I feel like my goal of being able to help all the overwhelmed working women is a little bit at a time I'm checking boxes. So thanks for your help in doing that. Have a great week. Have a great vacation. If this is your vacation week too - I hope it is! And let me know what you think of the podcast this week.

  Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Women podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com. See you next week.

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