Create a Life You Don't Need to Escape From

Episode 40: If a holiday is the only thing keeping you going right now, this episode is for you. Career Change Coach Dana Stevens talks honestly about what it actually means to live from holiday to holiday, the exhaustion of getting there, the body finally letting go and getting ill, the dread creeping back before the holiday has even ended. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why holidays cannot fix a working life that is not working
• What a life you do not need to escape from actually looks and feels like day to day
• Where to start if you want to build that life for yourself

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

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And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Today I want to talk to you about holidays, which might sound like a bit of an odd topic, but I'm going to tell you why, because I really want to talk about this relationship with holidays that so many people end up having when they're stuck in a job that's not working for them. I for sure definitely used to have this, where the holiday on the horizon wasn't just something to look forward to, it was the thing keeping me going. That might be the same for you, the thing you're clinging to. The thing that you tell yourself you just have to get through the next few weeks to reach. I used to tell myself I just have to grit my teeth and get through this next bit. And it's the sort of thing I hear from my clients all the time when they're unhappy. They say things like, I'm counting down the days, or once I can get on that plane, I can finally breathe and relax. Now, if that sounds familiar, this episode is for you because I've been thinking about what all of that really means, and I want to talk to you about a different way of living that I genuinely believe is available to you. Not just surviving until the next holiday, actually enjoying your life, your normal everyday working life. This is about so much more than just being tired and needing a break. Because when you're in a job that isn't really working for you, that holiday stops becoming a holiday and starts becoming a life raft. The one thing between you and going under completely. And so everything gets oriented around it. You push yourself harder in the weeks beforehand because you tell yourself you can rest when you get there, right? You work the extra hours, the late nights, the early mornings, trying to get ahead of the backlog so the pile waiting for you when you return isn't quite so unmanageable. And when you get there, when you finally make it to that holiday, what happens? Maybe you're so wired, so depleted, so wound up from the weeks of pushing through that it takes days just to begin to calm down from that. Your body, which has been running on stress hormones and willpower, finally gets the signal to let go and it does. That's why so many people get ill in the first few days of a holiday. It's like your immune system is like holding on for you, and then the moment you stop, it releases everything it's been suppressing. So you spend the next few days, the first few days, ill or exhausted or just kind of flat, not really being able to feel things properly. And that's not this glorious start to the holiday you've been imagining for all those months. And then, just as you're starting to feel something like yourself again, the other end starts to appear on the horizon, the other end of the holiday, and you start doing that mental calculation of how many days you have left. And the anxiety starts to creep back in before the holiday's even ended. The dread of going back, the thought of those hundreds of unread emails or work projects piling up, the deep breath you know you're gonna have to take when you walk back in and the whole cycle starts all over again. The holiday that was supposed to fix everything doesn't fix anything. It just paused it, and now it's back. And you have another stretch of endurance ahead of you until the next one. This isn't a life, this is survival. And I just want to make it clear here, I say that with absolutely no judgment because I really, really do know what that feels like from the inside. I've been there, I've lived it, I felt like I was stuck in that survival mode. So if you do recognize that, just take a moment and really think about whether this is what you really want for the next 10, 15, 20 years. Because sometimes if you see lots of people around you doing the same thing, it can be normalized. You can get used to it. You can think it's well, just everyone else is doing it. But try stopping for a moment and asking yourself, is this what I really want? Even if other people want to live this way, do I? Is this what I want for myself, for my family? And if a holiday really is the only thing keeping you going, that isn't really just exhaustion. That's your life sending you a clear signal that something needs to change. Not that you need a better holiday, not that you need more breaks, although you probably do, but that the working life you're living, the one you're desperate to escape from, is not right for you right now. And that's the bit that's worth questioning, rather than just enduring until the next time you can get away from it all. Because here's the thing about holidays when you're using them as an escape. They can't really do what you're asking them to do. They cannot fix a working life that is no longer working for you. They can pause it temporarily, they can give you enough of a break to get back on the treadmill again and handle another few months, but that treadmill is still there and you will still be on it when you get back. The only thing that actually changes the situation is changing the situation, right? And that holiday, a holiday is a beautiful thing when it's in addition to a life that you're already enjoying, but it's a really poor substitute for that life in the first place. So if you are in that countdown right now, I don't want to make you feel bad about it. I really want you to enjoy your holiday. You've absolutely earned it, I'm sure. But I do want you to hear this, see this as a signal worth paying attention to. Not to ignore, not to push back down once you get back, but to actually do something about. So, like I said, this is how I used to live, and I wanted to share that with you because hopefully it's a bit familiar to you. I was really that person when I was working back in corporate, head of StretchGit, a London ad agency, I was constantly on the edge. I was teetering right on the brink of burnout most of the time, sometimes feeling like I was falling over, sometimes able to pull myself back. And I remember if anyone asked me how I was, I always replied, busy, super busy, yes, so busy. I said that all the time. I really remember it. And I did feel like constantly stressed, like I was keeping all these plates spinning at work and at home, and I always felt like I was just about to let one crash to the floor, or I was kind of like braced, ready for something to crash. The job demanded a lot, clients' needs were always prioritized, everything was treated as equally urgent, which meant that nothing could really wait. And pitches, when I worked on lots of pitches, they might finish at midnight, 2 a.m., sometimes 3 a.m., sometimes all night, right? And on top of that, I was trying to manage childcare. My kids were really young, keeping on top of what the kids needed, responding to messages from the school, being a present parent and a present partner, and still somehow trying to keep up with the job. And it felt relentless. And I love travel, always have. So that holiday on the horizon was this thing I held on to really tightly, this promise of a break, a pause, even a brief chance to get off the hamster wheel. I would count the weeks, then the days, sometimes the hours too, and I would push myself really hard in the run up to it because I had to clear the decks before I went, work extra long hours to get ahead of the backlog, do even more than usual so that the pile waiting on my return would not be completely unmanageable. And for most people, there's not someone there taking over for us when we're on holiday. So I would arrive on holiday kind of wired, exhausted, stressed, and it would take me a few days just to really settle down from that. And more often than not, like I mentioned earlier, I would get ill in those first few days. My body would let go of everything it'd been holding on to, and I would get ill. And the early part of the holiday was often recovery, not being quite fully able to enjoy it, but needing some recovery time. And then just as I was starting to feel like myself, I would feel the other end approaching. The anxiety would start to creep back in. I would start thinking about what was waiting for me: the emails, the calls, the projects, the clients, and I would find myself dreading the end of the holiday before it even happened. Sitting somewhere beautiful physically on holiday, but mentally already halfway back to the office. Then it was back to work. Deep breath, hundreds of unread emails, sometimes even more than that, and the cycle would begin again. And I was that person constantly telling myself, life's gonna calm down, work's gonna settle down, this particular busy period's gonna pass, things are gonna get easier. But you know what? They never did. Because the busyness was not a temporary condition, it was the job. And the job wasn't gonna change. What had to change was me, or more specifically, what I chose to do. And since I've built my own coaching business, my relationship with holidays has really changed. My life now is calmer, more balanced, less stress. Now, sometimes people are surprised to hear this because so often people are holding on to this one-dimensional narrative of running a business, and they think that running your own business is going to be super stressful, this 24-7 thing where you're never gonna be able to relax, never gonna be able to take a holiday. But that honestly hasn't been my experience. It's been the complete opposite from that, and it was corporate that actually made it really hard, or I felt made it hard for me to take a holiday. And I've very intentionally designed my business to look and feel calmer and balanced. I have designed a working life where I can prioritize my mental and physical health, where I can do the school run, where I'm not being completely depleted and then asked to give more. So when a holiday comes, I don't need it to rescue me. I can simply enjoy it from the beginning, without getting ill, without spending the first few days just trying to feel like myself again. And I really clearly remember this moment when I understood how much had shifted. I was on a beach in Asia, which is one of my absolutely favourite places in the world, and it was the last evening of a holiday, and I was watching the sunset, and I realized it wasn't there. There was no knot in my stomach, no dread, no anxiety about going back to normal life. And it didn't come, right? It didn't arrive. Instead, I found myself thinking, God, this has been an amazing holiday. And I'm genuinely looking forward to getting back to work, to getting back to my life, back to the clients I love working with, back to the conversations that engage me, energize me, rather than training me. Look, I still love traveling. It is one of my biggest passions, and that hasn't changed. But now I go and I explore and I enjoy it fully and I get my fix, and I'm genuinely happy to come back to my normal life. And honestly, that feels pretty radical. I don't think I could have imagined that like 10 years ago. And now I still come back and start planning my next trip almost straight away. But now I'm doing it from a place of excitement rather than desperation, rather than needing to have something in the diary to look forward to. I anticipate it as an experience I'm going to enjoy rather than a rescue that I need. And that is a huge difference. And I'm telling you that not to sound smug, apologies if I sound smug, but I really am sharing that with you because I want you to know that change is possible, a different way of living and working is possible. And sitting on that beach, you know, this big aha moment I had was I've created this life I don't want or need to escape from. That felt huge. I've created a life I don't want to escape from. And that's what I really want you to start thinking about. Because this isn't just about something that exists for other people. I really want you to start imagining what that could look like for you. Maybe it's a simple Monday morning that doesn't arrive with dread. Not necessarily a Monday morning where you're jumping out of bed like thrilled. Maybe it's just one where you're feeling neutral, where work feels manageable, where you don't spend Sunday evening with a heaviness sitting on your chest. It might be getting to the end of a working day where you feel tired because good work takes energy, but you're not depleted. Not the kind of tired that means that you just have to collapse on the sofa and can't find energy for anything else, just normal tiredness. One that comes with having done a lot, right? The one that a good night's sleep is actually going to fix. It could be that you get this feeling from finishing your work and thinking, yeah, that was good. That mattered, that was worth doing, rather than just relief from ticking another thing off an endless list. It's going on holiday and actually being there, being present, not recovering, not dreading the return, just there enjoying it. All of it, including the last day. And none of this requires a perfect life. It doesn't mean never having a difficult day or a stressful week or a project that doesn't go well. It just means that the baseline of your working life is something you can live from, rather than something you need to escape. That is available to you. It genuinely is, not to some other version of you who has different responsibilities or a different history or more courage. You today, now. So how do you get from where you are now to this other type of working life? It starts with getting honest, really honest, about what's not working and why it's no longer working for you. Not the surface level of I'm tired and stressed, but the deeper level. What specifically about your job now or your career now or this way of working isn't right for who you are now, for where you are now, what your life is now. What needs to be different? What do you actually want your working life to look and feel like? Now I know these questions do sound simple, but I do appreciate they're not always easy to answer. People often say to me, but I don't know what I want. Right? And especially when you've been in survival mode for long enough that you've kind of lost touch with what you actually want or like, that can feel equally hard, but they are the right starting point. And I say that because I don't want you to just jump on job sites or start writing your CV or spending that last night of the whole day on LinkedIn trying to plan an escape. It isn't frantic researching that's not going anywhere. The starting point is understanding what's not working and learning how to get clear on what you do want. And that's the bit I teach my clients how to do: tools and techniques to teach you how to get clear on what you want. Because from there everything else becomes more possible. The direction becomes clearer, the options start to feel more real, the changes start to feel more achievable, not overnight and not without effort, but gradually with the right support and the right process, things can start to shift. And the working life where a holiday is something you enjoy rather than something you survive, that isn't a fantasy, it's something you can build deliberately, intentionally, one decision at a time. And that is what I help my coaching clients with. I show them how to make decisions they feel good about. We create a plan to help you get that new job and that new life that you don't need to escape from. I help you figure out what the life first career is that you want and need. So maybe you're counting down to your holiday right now, or maybe you're listening to this while you're away already. And if you are, I really want you to enjoy your holiday properly, fully. You've earned it, you deserve it. Try and switch off as completely as you can. Let your body and mind rest. Be present for as much of it as you can be, including the last day. And when you come back, think about how you feel walking back into your working life. Not as something that you need to push back against, but as information, as your life telling you something important. You don't need to spend the next however many years just clinging on, just surviving. You can actually make a change. And the first step is just deciding that this will be the last year that it feels this way for you. So if you want some help figuring out where to start and what that change could look like for you specifically, come and have a free consultation with me. We can talk about how coaching can help you. That's what a consultation is all about. The link, as ever, is in the show notes, and thank you so much for listening. I'm gonna see you next week. Bye for now.