Taking a Vacation For Your Well-Being Is Important to Your Success

When I left my last corporate job, I had over 300 hours of vacation. To break that down, I basically had two months worth of vacation time.

It’s not that I didn’t want to take a vacation or didn’t see the importance of taking a vacation for your well-being. I love traveling and have been traveling all my life. My issue was finding a perfect time for my job to be okay with me being away, even for a few days.

There always was something important happening at my job that prevented me from taking vacations. A special project that needed my attention or a boss that needed his hand held at all times. Does this sound familiar?

There never seemed to be a good time for taking a vacation for your well-being, so like many others, I didn’t take them often.

Lesson One: There’s never a perfect time for vacation for your job, so take it.

Not taking the time I needed to unplug and recharge made me sick. I constantly had headaches, was depressed and had no energy to do the things I wanted or needed to do. Sadly, I was too busy focusing on being the best employee and not being the best me.

It took years to figure out taking a vacation for your well-being helped me be both the best me and employee.

Lesson Two: Lack of vacations can show up in your body

I accidentally discovered taking a vacation was vital to my well-being when my phone was stolen in Greece. This probably was my first true vacation while having a full-time corporate job.

Before that incident, my job expected me to respond to emails and calls while on vacation. I can still recall how upset they were when I was unavailable because someone stole my phone. I also remember how relaxing it felt to not be bombarded with work stuff while trying to flirt with a cute guy on the beach.

Lesson Three: Cut unnecessary communication and be present

What really made me realize my wellbeing was dependent on taking vacations is when I booked a trip to Argentina. Typically I took extended weekend vacations because it was easier to get the time off. However, traveling to Argentina from San Francisco is not a short flight.

It didn’t make sense to travel for almost a full day each way only to spend two days in a foreign country. In order to make it worth the travel time, I opted to stay for two weeks. This was the first time I took a two-week vacation, but certainly not the last.

I finally discovered most of us don’t have a switch that makes us go straight into vacation mode when we step off that plane into paradise. Many need a few days to be fully present and relax into their vacations. By extending my trip to Argentina, I was able to come back fully rested and ready to get back to work.

And isn’t that what our employer wants for us anyways? To be fully rested in order to give 100% of our energy to our work? The best way to do this is by taking a vacation for your well-being on a regular basis.