5 Reasons Why You Should Use All Your Vacation Days

01.05.2018

[outfit_details] I will always be a high-strong and slightly over ambitious person when it comes to running The Coastal Confidence. I honestly think the fact that I can admit that is a huge step in the right direction. Naturally, I’ve […]

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I will always be a high-strong and slightly over ambitious person when it comes to running The Coastal Confidence. I honestly think the fact that I can admit that is a huge step in the right direction. Naturally, I’ve been known for not delegating enough out to crew members, while double-booking myself, as I desperately try to cram in as many photoshoot sessions as possible, while in New England. I often feel like I don’t want to burden others, so I just shove more and more onto my plate until my plate shatters, and boy did it fall apart over the holiday break.

I was in New England from December 15th – January 2nd and my over-ambitious personality thought I’d be able to fit in eight video shoots and twenty-four outfit shoots within that time period. Honestly, I was just straight-up delusional. The holiday season should be a time spent with family, friends, and community; instead, I spent my holiday season jamming in photoshoots between holiday parties, NYC adventures and Vermont ski slope runs.

I was waking up at 6:00 AM for photoshoots with my sister Tessa and editing photos until 1:00 AM; I was quite literally running myself into the ground. I over-extended myself and it left me with not only a 72-hour stomach bug (on Christmas Eve) but also a nasty cold. Overall, my ambitious habits left me sick for basically my entire trip home and I’m actually still sick writing this post now. My crammed in schedule resulting in my trip home, being the definition of a let-down. Our crew ended up only filming four videos and twelve outfit photos, which was pretty disastrous for my ego.

Ending 2017 on that note was not ideal but 2018, brings a fresh start to the table and most importantly new perspective. Not being in New England 100% of the time has made my job increasingly hard, but this year instead of cramming in as much as possible, while in New England; Matt and I are going to use each and every one of our vacation days and bring you along for…let’s call it the year of travel.

We’re going to actually use our air miles to bring you guys along to our favorite cities! Travel has always brought a cloud of anxiety for me, in terms of creating blog content, so while the written content will be true to New England, the pictures might be a little more travel-focused or out-of-the-box; and I hope you guys enjoy it. Anyway, to get to my point, if you’re a workaholic, a type A boss, or just a destructively overambitious person like me…listen up because here are 5 Reasons Why You Should Use All Your Vacation Days in 2018:

# 1 Recharge – I know from firsthand experience that when you overwork yourself, you often end up causing yourself the unnecessary mental stress and often become even less productive and in my case sick. Ideally you would think that working non-stop makes you a go-getter but actually, it can reduce both your productivity and quality of work; so give yourself a break and come back to work refreshed and recharged.

# 2 Perspective – I mean this point is reason enough to use all your vacation days. Having perspective is really important especially in the blogging industry. It is so easy to get caught up in what others are doing, why a certain image didn’t get that many likes or why you didn’t nail down a specific partnership; all of these things are completely situational but when you live, eat and breath your job; situational things can start to feel personal. So giving yourself a break can really help you see the BIG PICTURE, and focus more on the purpose of your job instead of the nitty gritty of it.

# 3 Inspiration – Take your vacation days and go see something, someone or somewhere that will fuel your inner fire. Whether that’s visiting a new city, a friend in a foreign place or a country you’ve been dying to attend; get out there and live life. Whenever I feel like my content has gotten stagnant, I try to book a quick flight to the cheapest city nearby. Traveling really adds a breath of fresh air into my soul and my brand.

5 Reasons Why You Should Use Your Vacation Days | The Coastal Confidence by Aubrey Yandow

# 4 Mental Health – Recently I’ve gotten into the app Headspace[headspace.com], if you haven’t heard of headspace before, basically it’s an app that provides guided meditation sessions and mindfulness training to you daily. I started the app back in December and I’ve really gotten into the idea of giving your mind down time and space. In fact, after using the app for just two weeks I noticed a difference in my overall attitude and stress levels, making me realize that vacation days shouldn’t be used to just sleep and recharge your body, but also to give the mind a break. Let your mind wander, read a book, do a puzzle, see a movie; giving your brain a vacation day is key to boosting creativity and new ideas.

# 5 Reflection – The start of a new year can be exciting and inspiring but taking your Vacation Day can be too. Use your time off to reflect on your goals, where you are in life and where you want to be. Connect with yourself and put systems in place to achieve those goals that you’ve temporarily placed on the back burner, then head back to work with a new game plan for your career and life.

I hope this post inspired you to put ‘the grind’ in perspective. Sometimes all you need is to take a break and get outside of yourself, in order to really have a breakthrough.

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