Podcast episode (Doing Business Like a Woman) hosted by Melissa Kellogg Lueck. The host explores the mental struggle business owners face when taking vacations—worrying that stepping away will harm the business—and shares mindset shifts and practical tactics to get restful time off: notice and allow anxious thoughts, stop self-judgment about how you vacation, decide ahead how plugged-in you want to be, ask “what would be fun now?” in the moment, permit small work tasks if desired, and return rested. Episode closes with a CTA for a free video training.
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Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Well, hello my friends and welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here. We are in the midst of the summer vacation when the kids are out of school and things are slower as far as schedules and everything. And I know a lot of you and us as well are on vacations. We're taking vacations. I know we took one already and we're getting ready to go camping for a while. I find it so interesting to observe how my brain reacts to vacation. And I thought this would be such a perfect time to have this conversation because of what I've noticed about how I am approaching vacation and stepping out of my business and kind of the mental gymnastics that go on. And also I've seen this happen with colleagues and clients and friends. So just thought we would talk about it here. And I actually have talked with my clients about this and I thought I would share it with you all as well and talk just about how we can go on vacation and actually enjoy ourselves. I want to make a distinction and you can define vacation however you want to, but I really feel like a vacation is meant to be like a rest or stepping out of our everyday life, our everyday environment and stepping into somewhere that is restful and fun. And I would not necessarily consider like taking the kids to Disney World like a vacation. That would be more like a trip because it's a lot of work. If you've ever taken kids to Disneyland or Disney World, whatever. But anyway, whether you call it a trip or a vacation or just a rest away or staycation or whatever, I want to just chat about how we can do that, get the rest that we need and really just create an environment for support for ourselves. Because what I've seen happen for myself is like I said, a lot of mental gymnastics around victims vacation and stepping away from my business. And so this last time when we had a family vacation earlier in the summer, it was really fun for me to like watch my brain over that time and just all the thoughts that were coming up and how it was making me feel. And so obviously, you know, we need time away. And I was really feeling like I needed time away. I wanted a break, right? And so we had this vacation and at the same time, my brain will Start freaking out. Like, you know, if I disconnect from my business, that something's going to happen or I'm going to come back and it's going to be all gone or everything's going to be broken or I won't want to come back, right? I'm going to have so much fun being away that I won't want to work anymore and I'm just going to be a slug or whatever and I'll be a failure and all these back and forth. Like I have this push and pull, like I have the. I need rest, I need to step away. But oh my gosh, I can't do it because something bad is going to happen. And that is not a really good way to get any sort of rest from what I found. And it doesn't have to be a problem that our minds are doing that, right? Like, it's just what the human brain is going to do because it's seeking to keep us safe. And so that's going to happen so we don't have to make it mean there's anything wrong with us. And so this time around, I mean, usually what I do when this happens is I'll, like, try to be pleasing, you know, my family and spending time with them and then try to be checking in on work and like, you know, all this going back and forth and it creates a lot of stress and I don't really enjoy myself and I don't get the rest that I need. So how can we get the rest that we need, enjoy our vacation and also do what we need to do for our business, right? And just feel great about all of it? Because what I've noticed happen is, and what I've done is just make myself wrong for how I vacation. So I'm wrong if I do check on my business, I'm wrong if I don't check on my business, I'm wrong if I don't spend every waking moment with the family that on vacation with. Or I'm wrong if I just totally unplug and ignore everything going on in my business and in the world for a few days, right? Like we make ourselves wrong for how we do it and that's not necessary. You just can throw that in the trash. You don't have to make yourself wrong. And so then I judge and criticize myself for how I'm feeling and that just makes it worse, right? And then I end up feeling awful for how I'm feeling. See, this is the push and pull and what I'm doing or not doing, and then I don't feel rested. And then I get back and I don't feel rested, I don't feel excited to return, and I still need a break. So we've got to stop the madness, right? So what I did this time, what I experimented with this time as I was on vacation and what I've talked to clients about is just to notice what the brain, what your mind is doing and allow yourself to feel that discomfort like you might be feeling, like, oh, I should be this, I should be that. Just a notice what's happening. And I want you to also remember that your business is not going to go to ruin. And one week, right, unless you know there's something awful that happens. But just by you stepping away, going on vacation, how you want to go on vacation, getting the rest that you need is not going to sink your business. So acknowledging that was very helpful to me. And then also just allowing yourself to do vacation, how you want to do vacation, that you and your family or the people that you're with, if you're with anybody, you all get to decide how you want to do vacation. So if that means that when you get up and you're having your morning coffee in the quiet of the morning and you want to check email, that's fine. You don't have to make yourself wrong for that. You don't have to say, oh, I'm going to make myself meditate. Instead, you can, you, you can allow for that to happen, right? And decide ahead of time what you want to do and how you want to vacation. And then also you can ask yourself in the moment, like, what would be fun to do right now? Because I know I've, I have had instances, and I did on this last vacation where I was like, oh, I know I should do X, Y, D, X, Y, Z. I should write a post, I should post a story or I should do video, right? And that should situation just doesn't feel good. It feels heavy and it's not fun. So instead what I decided is just to ask myself what would be fun to do right now? And then I would do that. So sometimes it was, I want to go play in the pool with the kids. And so that's what I did. Or sometimes it was like, oh, I want to write this post, or I want to post this story, or, you know, do this one thing. And so I did that. Or maybe it's, I don't want to be with anybody right now. I just want to go read my book alone. And so I did that. And Just let it be okay. That part of a really great vacation is also taking a vacation from the shoulds. How about that? Can we do that? It's really fun. And then I also just allowed my brain to just freak out a little bit about it and allowed for that discomfort and set and reminded myself that, yeah, it's going to feel weird to like, ask myself what I want to do and actually do it and just allow it to be okay. And it's okay. It's okay if that feels a little weird at first. But then when I supported myself in that way and allowed the discomfort and had my own back even through that, then I was able to really enjoy my vacation, enjoy my time away, and do it on my own terms, right? Like, yes, I did do some work. Well, I say quote, unquote work because it was like maybe posting on social media or I don't remember, I had to do one quick little project or something, but it wasn't a big deal. Write an email or something. Like it wasn't a big deal. I didn't make it a big deal. And I just allowed myself to do what was fun. Usually when I fly on the airplane, I'll work like during the flight because I'm like, all right, you know, two hours where I can just sit and, you know, power through something. And then when I got on the plane this time, my kids were watching movies and I realized there was a movie, King Richard, that I don't know if. If you've seen it, but it's an amazing movie. It was so good. And I haven't been able to find it anywhere on my streaming devices or anything. So I've been really wanting to watch it and I missed it in the theater and so they had it on the plane. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna watch that. So I totally didn't do any of the work that I had planned to do, which was fine. And I just let it be okay. And I let myself just enjoy the movie and not worry about the work that needed to be done. That is just some of my thoughts about how to really get what you need on vacation. And it doesn't have to be some prescribed way of vacationing. You get to decide. You get to decide how you want to do it, how much you want to be plugged in or not be plugged in and be okay with that and allow. Allow it to be okay. Allow it to be uncomfortable and come back to your business rested and refreshed and having a new understanding and a new way of how you do business and how you do vacation and how you balance it all right. So I just encourage you this summer to enjoy your time whether it's at home, at the pool, staycation or vacation or trips or whatever you're going to do. I hope you're having a fabulous time. We're going to be doing some camping so I will start certainly be posting about that on social because it's fun or maybe I won't. Who knows right? So I just wish you a fabulous rest of your summer vacation and I will see you next week. Bye. If you like this podcast then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training Grow youw Sales Doing what you love where I teach you in depth my simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time.
