Taking Time Off

Sarah Gibson addresses taking a break.

In my conversations with leaders in the past couple of weeks, one of the common themes emerging has been, “Our employees are not taking time off, and I’m seeing the fatigue it’s causing.”

Why Aren’t You Taking Time Off?

This begs the question, why aren’t people taking time off? A few reasons:

  • There are limited options to what we can do during our time off, so why take time now?
  • My workload has increased significantly and I can’t afford to take time off.
  • My job is uncertain so I’m going to save my time off in case something happens.

All of those are legitimate reasons, but those reasons don’t take into account the most important reason we take time off – to refresh and regroup.

If you google the importance of taking time off of work and walking away from the work, you’ll get limitless numbers of articles sharing why we need to walk away from our work for both mental and physical rejuvenation. We have the head knowledge this is true.

So why not take the time? It’s because we lack is the heart knowledge. The deep-seated belief this is true in a soul rejuvenating way.

My family and I are about to take a week’s vacation. This week leading up to those days off has been insane. Both my husband and I have been putting in 10-11 hour days trying to catch up and put enough stop gaps in place to walk away. Yesterday I lamented the work leading up to vacation makes me not want to take a vacation. Many of us feel that way!

What I know, deep down is that while my defensive lizard brain is functioning in fight or flight mode, I need time to rest and give my pre-frontal cortex time to regroup and take control of my work and habits again. The only way for me to do that is to walk away.

There’s even something called COVID brain, check out Inc. Magazine’s article on it here. Given the state of being we are at as a world, we need the time away more than ever. Time off clears our head and gives us a chance to think and process freshly.

We may need to reimagine what vacation and time off looks like during this phase of our lives. Maybe it’s day trips to local state parks. Maybe it’s a camping trip in the backyard. Maybe it’s a series of long weekends versus a solid week off. It will look different, but the importance of time off hasn’t changed.

If you haven’t taken time to regroup and recharge since the pandemic hit, carve out some time to regroup. While our work is important, but it’s not what we’ll look back at on our death bed and wish we had spent more time in our offices.

We know this cognitively (head knowledge), now it’s time to take action because you believe it’s true (heart knowledge). The leaders I’ve been talking to would say, “You’re too valuable to our business to burn you out. Go – rest – enjoy. We’ll see you in a little while.”

Trust your head and follow your heart and take some time off! You’ll be glad you did.

 

Vistage chair, keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork, and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams.

If you are a CEO or know a CEO who would benefit from a peer advisory group, please contact Sarah at Sarah.Gibson@VistageChair.com. To inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com. 

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