104. No Plane Ticket Required: Creating a Life You Don't Need a Vacation From

Tired of feeling like you need a vacation to "reset" your life?

In this episode, your host Laurie Reynoldson talks about the importance of designing a lifestyle that leaves you feeling refreshed every single day. Learn how to align your work, passions, and personal life in a way that creates constant fulfillment and peace.

It's all about small changes that lead to big impact—so you can stop dreaming about vacation and start living your ideal life right now.

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Transcript

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In this week's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, we're talking about creating a life that you don't need to take a vacation from. This is gonna be a good one. Let's get started. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. Well, hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I am your host, Laurie Reynoldson, and I am so excited to be back in the podcast studio this week. If you listened to last week's episode, you know that I was traveling, and although I had a portable Podcasting mic setup, the whole like, take the podcast on the road travel setup. I just couldn't get the microphone to work with a way that I thought that the audio sounded good. So we did a replay last week, but I am back in the podcast studio today. I was away last week, kind of on vacation, part work trip, part vacation trip. I got a really incredible inspiration for a podcast episode while I was waiting to pick up a pizza on Valentine's Day. I mean, nothing says, wow, we've, we've been married almost 22 years and celebrated Valentine's Day before that. Um, like a pizza to go dinner on Valentine's Day. We were in Sun Valley and waiting to pick up a pizza. We order it from a local's favorite pizza joint. And this pizza restaurant is just like all other small restaurants in ski towns, resort towns, where all the locals go. And what I mean by that is there are stickers. On every square inch of the oven hood, there are local posters on the walls. It's, uh, it's all very ski oriented, so advertising ski gear, brand names. Athletes, everything to do with skiing. And there, there was one sticker on the oven hood that really caught my eye. It said, my life is better than your vacation. I read it once, and it hit me, and I read it again. My life is better than your vacation. And I thought, wow. Wouldn't that be incredible to be able to say that? I think so many of us get in this Habit of we spend so much time working to be able to take a vacation like it's the the cherry on top that we are putting the time and the effort in to do which is go on vacation and It's been it's been a while obviously since I have been in a law firm or in a corporate environment But I just I I was thinking back to how many hours it took Before the vacation to be able to go on vacation, and I'm not just talking about planning the flights and the hotel rooms and the activities and that aside because yes, that takes a while too. But what I was mostly focused on was How much time and energy it took from a work perspective to be able to go on vacation. I mean think about it. There are so many projects that you have to wrap up or put a pin in before you go. So that Your client doesn't think that you've dropped the ball while you've left. And you either finish those projects or you transition them to somebody else. So you spend a decent amount of time with your co workers trying to get someone else up to speed to be able to cover for you while you're away. have to remember to put the out of office message on your email. Maybe you even do that on your voicemail. You look at the calendar. You either have to reschedule things. Or, if you're, like the old me, you tell your colleagues that you're really not available except for maybe just these. handful of really important meetings, you know, just go ahead and patch me in for these couple of meetings because they're really important and you have this, this self importance, this feeling that you absolutely must be there like no one can handle the client, no one can handle the meeting as well as you can, even though you're going to be on a beach or in Europe or in Asia or traveling around the U. S. in an RV. You're not even going to be there, but you still feel this obligation or this responsibility to just show up for these 3, 4, 5, really important meetings because for some reason you feel like it's just not going to be As fruitful if you're not there, like the team that you have hired to support you can't do it unless you're there, which is a whole other topic for another episode, but you get the gist of what I'm saying. Right where we spend so much time on the front end to be able to go on vacation and then we go on vacation, which is great. And I personally like to take at least two vacations a year. And there's, I think that there's a difference between a trip. I've got a friend who took her two youngest kids to Europe on a trip last year. Right? Because her husband wasn't able to go. She had the two teenagers. And she was talking about, it was great. We were in Europe, but it was a trip. It was not a vacation. There was nothing relaxing about it. We were on the go the whole time. So when I talk about taking a vacation, I talking about getting out of the office, but also spending some downtime. Whether that is every day of the vacation while you're away, you're gonna maybe, I like to have one beach vacation where really all we do is sit on our ass all day long. Yeah, yeah, we might get up and we might go for a run in the morning or we might hit the gym before breakfast. And we probably go out for a really nice dinner, but most of the vacation is just spent relaxing because there, there is a need, especially in our society today to just get away, to put down the phone, to not be on, to let our brains and our bodies rest and recover and recover. Cooperate because we just, we're constantly on to the next, we're, what is the next obligation that we have? What's the next thing on our to do list? And because we are so connected now, I mean, think about it. There, there are really no boundaries between you and your clients anymore with respect to what time they're going to text you, what time they're going to send you an email that they can send you an email late at night, one night, and expect to have a response early the next morning. Part of the reason that they expect that is because we haven't set good boundaries with them. This is getting a little far afield. Let's finish this and then we'll come back to the vacation. But if our clients were better educated about what we would and would not tolerate from them. And by that I mean, if you email me after 6pm, I'm not going to get back to you until 10 or 11 or 12 the next day. Because yes, you reached out to me after business hours. Yes, I have been in the office before 10, the next morning, but I probably have some other things that I have to do. That doesn't mean that you're not important to me. It just means that In order to keep my schedule on time and to be as productive as I can while I'm in the office, I have a certain order in which I do things. So, if you are someone who feels like you have to respond as soon as the email comes in, or respond as soon as the text message dings, Maybe you do. Maybe what you are corresponding with your clients about is that important. But I think it's probably worth asking yourself the question, which is, is this something that can wait till tomorrow? And if I don't jump up and immediately respond, What is the message that I'm sending for them next time that they reach out? Right? You're adjusting the expectations. You're, you're actually holding and setting some healthy boundaries for yourself. Again, way far afield from what this episode is about. But, the boundaries come into it a little bit, right? Whether that is responding to the text messages, responding to the emails, deciding that you are going to be available for a couple of meetings while you're away, even though you're supposed to be on vacation. Even with the out of office message on, on your email, I don't know how many times I have clients get the automatic response and then immediately text me or immediately email me. And it's what I do, how I respond in those instances that makes the whole relationship, right? If somebody gets my out of office message, and then calls me on my phone or sends me a text. I have to be really careful about how I'm going to handle that because it's just about, about training them, training the clients to respect your need to have some away time, because you're going to be more effective when you get back anyway. Again, far field there. Okay, so you're on vacation. You've spent a lot of time getting everything in order so that you can leave the office. You go on vacation, and invariably, when you're away, do you ever notice that Even though people in your office know that you're gone, you might get an email that says, I know that you're out of the office and I'm so sorry to bother you with this. If you are checking the email though, would you mind just. Answering this quick question and it never is a quick question, is it? It's always something that, that, like, there's no way that you can respond in a quick manner. This is, there's no way. So then you kind of get pulled in. There's, you know, I'm, I'm sorry to bother you. I have a quick question for you. When we do decide to respond to those things, then we're sending a message that. I am on vacation, but I am available to you. And if you want to be available to those people, great. Absolutely. That's your prerogative. But sometimes maybe we need to take a step back and say. I'll take care of this when I'm back in the office, whenever that is. You going on vacation? I am constantly amazed by, when I get back, how much time it takes for me to go through every single email and voicemail that I have received while I'm gone. Email is like breeding rabbits. It, it is, The number of emails that come in in a day is astounding. It's just, it's a staggering amount. And for the most part, you know, it's mostly junk mail. But you can't just wholesale delete it all because what if, what if there is something important in there that you need to respond to? One of the business coaches that I've had over the years, Talked about when he would go on vacation, his out of office message would read, I'm out of the office for the next 15 days. Here's the date when I will return. I've programmed my email to delete every email I have received while I'm gone. If this is still important on X date when I return, then please send me another email. I love that approach. I've never, I've never done it, but I always think about it because wouldn't that be wonderful Transcribed To go on vacation, come back, just have this super relaxing re entry where you weren't having to respond to all of the things that happened while you were gone. You wouldn't have to sift through the thousands of emails that you received in the little bit of time that you were away from the office just to figure out, is this still important? Because that's, that's the other thing, right? Even though this was important last week, it doesn't mean that it's still important because maybe it's already been handled. Maybe somebody else took care of it while you were away. But I love the idea that, it's all going to be deleted. So if this is still an issue when I return, then send me another email and I'll respond to it then. Because let's face it, when we spend hours and upwards of days, Trying to get back to zero, trying to dig ourselves out of that hole when we return from vacation, then all of that vacation glow, it's gone, right? It takes so long to earn it, to get it, to feel like you're in vacation mode. I mean, for me, it takes me a good, Three or four days just to settle into vacation mode, because certainly just because you're on vacation on day one, you mostly there's travel involved and airports and Wade lines, and just getting to the point where you can start the vacation is a lot. So then it takes me just a couple of days to feel like I'm in vacation mode to really ease into it. And that. Post vacation glow that all that relaxation and that recovery that I've done It's gone like by 10 o'clock the day that I returned to the office do you know what I'm talking about? And if we had some mechanism like that out of the office that everything was going to be deleted When that would be helpful for sure, right? I want to take it one step further and go back to the sticker on the pizza oven at the pizza restaurant. My life is better than your vacation. And it got me thinking that that is exactly what I do with my coaching clients. Is we get really intentional about building a life for them that they don't need a vacation from. Sure, they're gonna, most of them still want to be able to travel, whether that's abroad or across the U. S. Or they want to be able to travel to see friends and relatives. Absolutely, travel is still a piece of it. When you are living a life that is full of personal satisfaction and happiness and fulfillment, whatever that looks like for you. When that is your normal, when that is your everyday life, you don't want to take a vacation from it. you just want to wake up and live your life. And again, this doesn't mean that, you know, all of a sudden, once you, you build this best life, this dream life. That you don't want to travel and go and do new things and learn new things and see new cultures. That's not it at all. But there's not this pressure or this need or this desire to just get away from everything. In fact, when we were in Europe in November, we were gone. Uh, 15 days and by about day 10 or 11, I was ready to get home, not because I wasn't having a great time. we had the most incredible vacation in London and Paris. Two amazing cities. Paris, one of my favorite cities in the whole world. London, this was my first time there. I really, really liked it a lot. Can't wait to go back there. So it wasn't so much what we were doing. Or where we were that created this desire in me to get back. It was because I love the life that I'm living. I love the life that I've created. And I didn't have that when I was sitting in an office, billing 40 to 60 hours a week working as an attorney. You might be an attorney, and you might love every minute of every day, and it's not even about every minute of every day, but you love that, What type of work that you're doing. You love going to work. That's great. For me, that wasn't, that's not what filled my cup. and that's what you have to figure out. What is going to bring you happiness? What is going to bring you joy? when you close your eyes and you think about your perfect day, you think about your perfect week, where are you? What are you doing? Do you work? Do you not work? Who are you around? How do you spend your day? Like, if you were to close your eyes and really think about, okay, perfect day. What time am I waking up? Where am I waking up? Who is beside me? What do I do as soon as my feet hit the ground after I get out of bed? and you just visualize in as much detail as you can. In fact, the more specific, the better. What does that perfect day look like? Probably, it doesn't include packing up a suitcase, getting on the subway somewhere, flying somewhere. Maybe it does. But what if you could live a life that you were already in those places that you dream about being? Like, that's your home base. For me, I will get to the point where I spend Part of the year, every year in France, probably the south of France, maybe Paris, but I will live in France for part of the year, every year. I will probably also live in Mexico for part of the year because I really like the hot sun. And I'll tell you, the older I get, I like traveling to the snow. I like going skiing. I like being on the ski hill. It's beautiful. Man, I don't need to live in it though. I really don't. The scraping of the windshield and it's cold. And I don't know, the older I get, the less I enjoy winter. But that's what you have to figure out for yourself, is, okay, if I want to split time between here and there, where are those places? What will I be doing? I think the thing to, understand though, to be present with, is happiness is the journey. So you can't think to yourself, I'll be happy when, I'll be happy when I retire. I'll be happy when the, the kids, Leave the house and I have a lot more free time. I'll be happy when my husband and I have more time to devote to ourselves. I'll be happy I open up my 401k the, the statement from my financial advisor, and there are so many zeros on the page. If you're not happy now, the waiting until something else happens, you're, you're not going to get there. related to that, if you don't have gratitude for your life right now, who you are, what you have, everything around you, then it's not going to matter how many zeros are on that statement from your financial planner. It's not going to matter that you've retired from your job. It's not going to matter that All of a sudden, you're an empty nester and you have all this free time to go and explore and do the things that you want to do. Happy now, not happy when. Fulfilled now, not fulfilled when. Satisfied right now. And, and that doesn't mean that you can't want for more. That, I'm happy now with everything that I have and I don't want anything else. Like, if I never did another thing in my entire life, if I never saw anything new, if I never learned anything new, That's not what I'm saying. Happy now. Satisfied now. Fulfilled now. And still be interested in growing, and going, and doing, and learning new things. Because that's all part of the journey. It's all part of life to understand. And I think it's a really important thing to do is to really understand the different seasons that we're in and enjoy all of them. And, for, for many of us, not really want to go back to the ones that we've experienced before. Even though when we were young, you know, oh, God, I wish I was 16 and then I wouldn't have to sit here and be bored. Cause I could, I could have my driver's license and I would go pick up my friends and we would go do this. Oh, I can't wait until I'm 21 and, and then we can go on party and I can have a glass of wine at dinner and. Oh, I can't wait until I'm 30 because then I'll be established in my career. I can't wait until I'm, I'm, we've done that so long where we constantly have our focus on what's going to happen in the future. It's one thing to dream about things to come. It's one thing to be excited for future opportunities. It's a completely other thing to wait until you get to that next thing, that next achievement, the next opportunity, the next whatever it is. When you are waiting until then to live the life that you want, to feel the emotions that you want to feel, to be grateful for all that you have, you're never going to get there. It doesn't matter how long you work. It doesn't matter how many zeros you have on your bank account statement. Happy now. Grateful now. Fulfilled now. And with that, how would your life change if you could create a life, you could live a life today, that you didn't need to take a vacation from? And I don't mean go in and quit your job and move to a new city. You don't have to, you don't have to burn everything down or start completely over or press the reset button. You do, absolutely do not have to do that. That's not what I'm saying. But You can be really intentional about showing up, becoming the woman who you want to be, who lives the type of life that you want. You can start doing that right now. It doesn't, like I said, it doesn't have to be a wholesale start over. There are ways in which you can infuse moments. Future self, you, there are ways in which you can make decisions. There are ways in which you can work your job that get you closer to living the life that you don't need to take a vacation from, and you can start doing that right now. Like I said, though, I mean, that doesn't mean that you can just decide, okay, this is what I want and tomorrow I'm going to, I'm going to go get it. I mean, I, I shouldn't say you can't do that. If you have the funds and the means and financially set so that you can make big decisions like that. I call that the, the, the three day rule, which is three bad days and I'm out of here. If you are in a situation where you can do that. Then what are you waiting for? Absolutely go do that. For the rest of us though, there is some planning that needs to happen. But again, that doesn't mean that you can't start making small steps in the direction that you want to go right now. You can start living in a way that is closer to Your best life that's closer to you living the life that you don't need to take a vacation from and you can start doing that right now. I would love to hear from you. What was your biggest takeaway from this week's episode? What are you going to do with this information? Now knowing that you are actually closer. Then maybe you thought was possible before to living a life that you don't need to take a vacation from. What, what are you going to do with that information? How is your life going to change? When you think about your very perfect day, what are you doing and how are you going to start infusing a little bit of that into your life right now so that you can get closer to living the life that you've always wanted to live and starting that earlier than maybe you ever thought possible. Because, I'm telling you, I promise you, just like the sticker at the pizza restaurant, you can create a life that you don't need a vacation from. You can create a life that is better than someone else's vacation. And you, as a high performing woman, you have so many more means to do that than you maybe ever thought possible. So take a screenshot of this episode. Tag me on social. Let me know how close are you to living a life that you don't need a vacation from. I cannot wait to read all of your responses. Thank you so much for being here today. As always, I just, I, I love this time that we get to spend together each week. And it means so much to me that you show up here to the School of Midlife to participate in these really important conversations that midlife women are having. everywhere. Finally, someone is, is talking about so many of these topics when for a long time there, there was no outlet. So I'm grateful for you to be a part of our community at the School of Midlife. Thank you so much for being here. With that, I will sign off on this week's episode. I will see you back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session, and until then, take good care. Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.