If you’re like me, travel restrictions have held your love for travel on hiatus for the foreseeable future. As the quarantine months passed, I felt this odd conflict of emotions bubbling inside me. It was something between feeling extremely grateful to work remotely and the inescapable awareness that time was moving and yet nothing was happening. Bothered by this personal conflict, I decided to take action and start being more intentional with how my time was being spent.
Facing the Past
With that being said, I wanted to do things a little differently. Yes, we could all just travel locally to scratch the itch, but would that be enough? To answer my question, I started with a personal evaluation of how I was spending my time.
With my calendar out, I scanned over the last couple of weeks; making a count of the most common activities, and looking at all of the quarantined months to see if I could find a trend. While I mapped my activity, I checked in with myself and thought about how I felt while doing those things.
As the data accumulated, I started to paint a picture of the habits I had unconsciously developed over the last couple of months. That’s when I noticed the trend. My life was an accumulation of intense productivity that would quickly shift to avoidance and a feeling of low vibration – aka, a slump. After struggling in the slump, I would gain motivation again and over-exert myself to make up for the lost time.
The big question became, how do I anticipate these lulls and bounce back faster? Better yet, how do I differentiate between recharging and exhaustion?
To learn more about the power of habit, check out The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s article on “Changing Habits”
Finding Simple Joys
That personal evaluation allowed me to see that I really was overextending myself. I was burning my energy at a rapid pace in hopes of riding the wave of productivity as long as I could. As a result, when the energy was flaming out, I would feel completely unmotivated to do anything. To the point where making a grocery run seemed like a large effort.
As I looked at the big picture, I realized that I wasn’t giving myself enough grace. There was no factoring in time for the simple joys; the activities that would recharge me. Simple joys don’t particularly create the most visible values but they are the formula that keeps us going.
Filling Your Cup in Real-Time
Now it’s your turn, to run a personal audit for yourself, visualize ten cups with the labels below. If you had a bottle with 100oz, how would you distribute the content of the bottle? Is it evenly distributed or are you neglecting a couple?
- Career
- Personal Growth
- Finances
- Spirituality
- Health
- Fun
- Environment
- Community
- Chosen Family
- Partner[s]
If the image you’ve painted doesn’t sit well with you, take some time to reflect and see how you would like to redirect your efforts and the contents of your personal bottle. If you feel happy with the distribution, keep it up! Setting regular check-in’s on your calendar is a great tool to keep you on track.
Ideas to recharge your energy:
- Take a picture of the sunset in a different location every day for a week.
- If you’re a morning person, go outside and feel the sun as it rises. Let it warm you up until it takes over your whole body.
- Go on a 10-minute drive in any direction and take your coffee-to-go with your favorite tunes, and a journal.
- Take a short walk and find a quiet spot or park near a beautiful setting to hear your thoughts and focus on breathing.
- Visit a new hiking trail or outdoor space to complete a workout. Challenge yourself to go back for a week and beat your time each day.
- Spot how many different flowers you see on a walk.
- Travel to a nearby city or county and spend the day like a tourist.
- Next time you go grocery shopping, imagine you’re actually a kid on a field trip.
- Download a virtual tour, grab your headphones, and sight-see for the afternoon.
- Rediscover local architecture. Find historic and cultural landmarks and learn the history of your neighborhood.
These ideas are a starting point. They were things that helped me redefine travel & adventure and helped me stay grounded. I hope it does the same for you! Remember, nothing is set in stone and you have a chance every day to shift your schedule and keep a balanced life. You’ve got this!