When my workplace decided to give us three(!) weeks off for the holidays, my mind filled with possibilities.[1] I wanted to read a bunch of things, write, see friends and family, spend time with our puppy, do some cleaning around the house, play a couple of video games, and more! And so my first instinct was to make a daily schedule that would accommodate all of these things. And…I did. It’s sitting right here. And boy did that feel horrible! I started feeling stress that even with three weeks, I wouldn’t be able to do all the things I wanted to do.

So what happened here? First, I started with the question of “what do I want to accomplish?” vs. “How do I want to feel?” The results were predictable—I felt stressed over a list of things that I actually want to learn! This transformed my desired feelings (relaxed, happy, peaceful, full) into stress.

I want to credit my friend Athena (a fantastic coach, you can read about her work here) for getting me started in a different direction. Through a series of questions, I ended up prioritizing how I wanted to feel during and after the break, and then working backward from there to figure out how I wanted to spend my break. The result? I made a list of things I wanted to prioritize over break (many of the things I listed above plus a few more) and let go of worrying about when they might happen. From there I just let each day unfold—if I felt like playing video games from 8-10AM, I did that. And if I slept until 10AM, that was okay as well. And if I ever wondered: is this really how I want to spend my time? I would just look at my list, make sure the thing I was doing was on there, and then let go of whatever was worrying me. How’d that go? Great, I’d say. I had a relaxed, happy, peaceful, and full break, where I did and accomplished everything I wanted to do and was ready to go back to work on Monday. I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened in my life.

[1] This is not the lesson, but I’ve become convinced that we should stop working between Thanksgiving and MLK Day. Shoutout to Mike Dub for the original idea.