Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 391: When Your Motivation Stays on Vacation

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Episode 391: When Your Motivation Stays on Vacation · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  it's that instant perspective shift of, okay, I had this daunting task and now I've got a plan. And that's the key to this. You've got to think it through and have a plan for readjusting.
• 0:15
  Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Growth Project, a podcast done by AMP powered by Elliot Davis.
• 0:21
  Really? We are a group of individuals with a background in sport and performance psychology that serve a broader human capital practice. And really, at the end of the day, with this podcast about is to help you pursue better and be better. So I'm Anthony Libra, I'm joined by Gabby Cavities here. And today we've got a pretty interesting topic, especially in the middle of July here, where I'm sure most of you are probably going on some kind of vacation, hopefully taking some time to detach and take some time off.
• 0:47
  But a lot of times we find that when we go on vacation and we come back, our motivation is still on vacation. Gabby, tell me a little bit about this.
• 0:55
  Yeah. I mean, I think we can all relate to this, especially this time of year. You know, you you look forward to
• 1:03
  that vacation mode so much and you're on vacation.
• 1:06
  Maybe. You know, we've talked a lot about detachment. Hopefully you're able to detach. And we know that there's a lot of value to detaching. However, when you come back, sometimes you might still feel detached and and you gotta figure out, you know, how to reengage and reattach, if you will, to your work. And and that can be really hard.
• 1:29
  I know, especially when I go, when I come back from a vacation, right. Like that that first day back and I open outlook and I open teams and I'm just inundated with all the notifications. And I can just, like, feel the gut punch that just within me right there. And you know, we when you think about a vacation, especially when you're a kid, you know, it's supposed to be refreshing.
• 1:48
  It's supposed to be like, okay, I take some time away. I was able to detach. Now I'm able to focus back on work, focus what I need to do with a fresh mind. And that's usually not the case. Usually you come back, you're like, why am I here? And you feel like you're trudging through the mud,
• 2:02
  and there's just the overwhelm of like, okay, now I have all of this extra work to catch up on too.
• 2:07
  So it's it's a bit of a mental, almost flip between what we think a vacation should be versus sometimes what it actually feels like.
• 2:14
  So you kind of hit on everything that we feel when we come back. It's, overwhelmed, feeling disengaged, and. And what we just call this post vacation motivation lag. Right? It's like this.
• 2:27
  I think about that spinner when you're, you know, internet is going slow and you're waiting for your web page to load. It's just that spinning wheel of, like, let me try to get my mind back on my priorities and back on, you know, the systems and processes I have for going about my day and getting my things done that I need to get done.
• 2:48
  And oftentimes, you know, it's not really a discipline problem. It's not that you don't have the discipline. It's not that you don't know what you need to be doing.
• 2:58
  It's that transition you're talking about of of going from vacation mode to work mode.
• 3:04
  yeah. And then we think about it too, like the weeks and weeks and weeks that you're not taking a vacation.
• 3:09
  You obviously you get into a bit of a routine, you have some momentum that you're carrying forward. And you you're used to the, the eight to for the 9 to 5 or an 8 to 5, whatever that schedule may look like for yourself. But at the same time, right when you go back and now you're on a vacation and you're used to going to the beach from 11 to 3, and that's the that's the big ticket item of the day.
• 3:31
  It's a pretty harsh transition to then wake up that following Monday or whenever you come back and go, okay, we're we're back in it. We're back on the work ride. We're back into productivity mode. And it's it can be quite harsh.
• 3:42
  I think I was talking to one of our other colleagues recently about this and she and I were talking about how, you know, if you take a weekend vacation, you know, standard you normally take off Friday.
• 3:55
  But then you're back at work Monday. Right. A lot of times maybe you get back from your travels or your weekend getaway Sunday evening, and then you got to jump right back in Monday morning, and that's really hard to do. She,
• 4:09
  was saying something she's learned, and I'm like, wow, that's really valuable. And I'd have to start implementing that is give yourself a little bit of a buffer maybe.
• 4:18
  Do you know, take Friday off but also take half day on Monday. Yeah. Or if you can't do that, plan to come back earlier on Sunday to give yourself a little bit more of that buffer to to help with this piece of lag. But I mean, even with that, it's inevitable that you're going to have some sort of transition adjustment.
• 4:41
  absolutely. You know, those are great takes to that idea of maybe when you go from a full stop to a full sprint, it's going to be really difficult for you to not feel gassed on that first day. You're going to you're probably gonna hit Monday at 11:00. You're like, oh boy, I think I'm done for the day.
• 4:55
  Where's my where's my beach? Yeah. And I'll go back to athletes on this.
• 5:01
  when they are in off season, they don't just go straight from offseason to end season. Right. It's it's off season, preseason, in-season. You have that that ramp up period of okay, let me get my head back in the game. Let me get this motivation flowing again.
• 5:16
  So I think we can learn a lot from the athletes we work with. In terms of how do you progress back in after a break?
• 5:26
  Incredibly well. So what is your preseason look like? What is your ramp up look like as you get your feet back under you really the common theme there. And I think it's worth diving into Gabby.
• 5:35
  Like when we talk about a vacation and we talk about how it relates to motivation. Why does motivation drop after we take some time off?
• 5:43
  one thing we we always preach is that if you wait for motivation to show up, it's never going to you, right? Motivation is action driven. And that means that in order to feel motivated, you need to be pursuing and acting on your goals.
• 6:03
  And that takes structure, that takes clarity, it takes having some sort of meaning attached to the work that you're doing. Right. So when we step away from our work environment, we step away from that structure. We lose sight of the meaning sometimes, because we just get so engulfed by how nice it feels to focus on ourselves. And, you know, I think that that is a big piece of, you know, the motivation is we've got to remember that to get that motivation back, you have to start acting.
• 6:42
  And I love how you mentioned the perspective shift really that occurs there. Right. Because when we talk about what it means to have structure, clarity and meaning, it's probably a lot harder that Monday coming back. Right. It's probably a lot more difficult to see. Okay, why am I here today? Like genuinely what am I doing today that is of greater importance here.
• 7:03
  And you know, for the last week or maybe week and a half, well, we're much time you took off maybe even the previous weekend. That three day trip that you took, your priorities shifted there. So the clarity and the meaning and the routine and the structure that you had gotten so accustomed to now is a bit a bit put on the back burner there.
• 7:20
  So of course, when you come back, it can definitely feel a little bit less meaningful. You definitely feel like you're going through the motions, you're more on autopilot and maybe even bored, maybe even wondering, hey, like what? What am I doing here? Really? What am I doing with my life sometimes is the thought that comes across my mind when I come back.
• 7:40
  Well, yeah. For you've been ziplining across the ocean. Yeah. It might, it might feel a little less important to be sitting at your desk sending emails. Right? Yeah. I think that that is that lack of perceived importance is a huge component to this. On top of the the work piling up. And yeah, you know, you go on vacation, it doesn't stop the emails from flooding and it doesn't stop your clients from pinging you.
• 8:06
  And it definitely doesn't stop, the timeline for goal attainment. Like, you know, maybe you're at the end of Q2, you take your vacation, or close to the end of Q2, be still got those Q2 goals. You got to come back to you right and meet. So there's this sense of you get back and you've got to catch up.
• 8:27
  yeah. And I can feel really overwhelming. Right. Because typically when you look at a day you're like, okay, I have 4 or 5 big ticket items, maybe less, maybe more, but I know I can get through that in the day. But then you take five days off and it's okay. Five times five is now 25 things to do.
• 8:43
  And you're looking at Monday your to do list. I'm a big fan of, the online sticky notes and written the sticky notes. And when the sticky note takes up an entire monitor, that's that's what I know. I'm in trouble. Right? That's when you know you're looking at it and you're going, okay, this feels huge. This feels massive.
• 8:57
  I don't I don't even know where to start. So when we were able to and we talked about this in the beginning. Right. Those vacations are good. They create that mental distance. They help to buffer against burnout. They also help to rejuvenate, to recuperate there. But at the same time, you know, we look at the sticky notes, you look at the to do list.
• 9:16
  It compounds, it builds and builds and builds. And sometimes that workload can really begin to feel insurmountable there. So it's, there's pros and cons sometimes in terms of allowing ourselves to truly detach and to truly enjoy a vacation, but then also thinking about what's this going to look like when I come back.
• 9:36
  that sticky note analogy resonates well with me.
• 9:38
  It means more of this like to do list that it's just bullet points and bullet points of, oh, man, you know, where do I even start? So I'd love to hear and I'm sure what the series would do. What advice do you have? What strategies can we start thinking about, to help with this endless To-Do list or this massive sticky notes you have covering your screen?
• 9:59
  Yeah. First step. Cry right now. Don't. That's not that's not that's not the first step. No I mean especially yeah. Right. No. That that idea of the when big projects feel unclear. Right. When the when the 25 things to do really begin to intimidate you. It's almost natural to want to avoid. Right. It's almost natural to want to like step away from it, begin planning the next vacation, so to speak.
• 10:22
  But you know, that's not going to do anything right. And in fact, it that you do, it's just going to just overflow even further. So one of the the skills that we teach athletes, that we teach service members that we teach, even our corporate and organizational clients as well, is something called goal chunking. And it's it's pretty simple.
• 10:39
  And the idea that you you take down a large goal, you take down a large project, maybe even a large to do list, and you break it down into smaller, more digestible goals. Right? I'm sure everybody maybe you have, maybe you haven't heard this adage of, well, how do you eat an elephant? You eat at one bite at a time, right?
• 10:56
  If you look at the entirety of the elephant, you're like, oh my God, how am I going to eat that? Of course it's going to be overwhelming. Of course it's going to be a lot. And it's the same thing how we think about projects is the same thing, how we think about our to do list. When you look at it, it is totality.
• 11:10
  It can be a lot. It can really be a lot. So really, if you're able to break that down into, okay, what a what is 1 to 2 things look like in the next hour or two? Okay. How do I build off that. What it was another 1 to 2 things look like. And just continuing to chip away and chip away and chip away until you do make some meaningful headway.
• 11:29
  I go back to I, I know I've told this before way, way long ago on the podcast, but I think it was, a piece of advice that was good intention but did not produce the best outcomes for me. I remember starting college and my grandmother, she was like, yeah, if I can give you one piece of wisdom, it's, you know, if you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute.
• 11:59
  And I go back to the procrastination piece you're speaking to, right? When something is big and daunting, we tend to put it off. We tend to procrastinate because, you know, we know we'll get it done. But that looming anxiety around tackling it where to begin forces us to or shifts us into that avoidance mentality.
• 12:21
  And I then remember going to grad school and working on my dissertation
• 12:27
  and that approach, if I waited till the last minute, it's only going to take a minute with no longer going to work.
• 12:33
  It's. Yeah, 150 page document that I'm writing up and that I'm not going to sit down and write 150 pages. I had to chunk it like you're talking about it. And my advisor was great Doctor David Eccles. He really helped with this process of chunk it. Write your introduction. I'll give you some feedback. Writer methods. I'll give you some feedback.
• 12:55
  So this idea of breaking down this massive task or, To-Do list into manageable pieces. Yeah, yeah. And especially when you come back from a vacation. Right. If, you know, you have the I think the, the, the 150 page dissertation is a perfect example of that, right? That, that document that's like a living, breathing existence. All of the work that you're doing, and you look at it like, okay, I'm on page one and it's it's like, oh boy, the long ways away to page 150.
• 13:28
  It's a long ways away to the finish line. And you know, doctor caveat this is grandmother here. Can can attest to this now with, you know, it's not about getting to page 150. It's about, okay, today I'm going to get to page 4 or 5. I'm going to make sure that the work I do is quality. And on until page 4 or 5.
• 13:46
  And I know I can stop a page 4 or 5 in the next day, I can do 5 to 10, and that's where you can begin to make some headway. And at the end of the week, maybe, okay, I'm not done yet, but I've made some headway. Yeah, I've been able to actually make some meaningful work towards this.
• 14:02
  I was this just reminded me I was just working with one of my youth athletes, the other day, and she came in, and she was really just worked up and anxious around school getting ready to start back.
• 14:15
  for any parents listening to this podcast, hopefully you'll find this beneficial, like your kids kind of in that that state of returning to to school.
• 14:23
  But she came in, she was, she the golfer. She was, you know, obviously, has a lot going on with that. But the main focus of our session was, hey, I have the summer reading. I haven't started my 300 page book. I've got Worlds coming up. You know, there's a lot I've got to to balance right now, and I'm stressed.
• 14:43
  And I don't know where to begin. And we sat down and we were like, okay, how many pages is the book? 300 pages. Right? Roughly. Do you want to finish it by? When she gave me the date, it was about two weeks away.
• 14:56
  A week and a half, I think. And we did the math on it.
• 14:58
  We said, okay, well, if you dedicate time in the morning to read 40 pages each day for the next 14 days, you'll be done.
• 15:11
  And she immediately I could see her body relax. She was like, okay, well, yeah, that I can do that. And it's
• 15:19
  that instant perspective shift of, okay, I had this daunting task and now I've got a plan. And that's the key to this. You've got to think it through and have a plan for readjusting.
• 15:31
  No, it's a that's a great example, Gabby.
• 15:32
  And it's the idea to, you can increase the scope of this as well. Right. Like it can be across a day. I looked at our calendars next week, and I look at Monday, I'm like, okay, if I can get to, I can get to noon Monday. I'm going to be okay. Now, I know if I get to noon, I get to two.
• 15:46
  If I can get the two that I can get to four. Right? Yeah. And you can you can broad that out to a week. You can bring that out to a month. And one of the things we used to teach, soldier is trying to go to Special forces was SFA. Yes. Which is Special forces assessment selection. It was a three week process.
• 16:02
  Right. And if you look at it on day one and go, okay, I have three weeks of just putting my body and mind to the absolute limit. It is so overwhelming. But if you can break that down into, okay, what is what does it look like for me to get to tomorrow? What does it look like for me to get to my next bill?
• 16:18
  Right. Like, what do I have to do then? It gives you that sigh of relief. It gives you the shoulders come down a little bit. Okay. That's a little bit more manageable. So really exactly that, that planning aspect is absolutely critical for that.
• 16:31
  Another great example of just take it day by day, right.
• 16:34
  Minute by minute, hour by hour. Give yourself a little bit of grace and understand that. Yeah. Just making it through the first few days back is a challenge in and of itself. And prioritize that.
• 16:50
  Absolutely. And we we talked a good bit about the okay, the overwhelm. Like how do we deal with the compounding to do list.
• 16:57
  I'm curious too. We're going more into meaning and engagement. Right. Because I think that's where a lot of people also struggle. Is that perceived importance is probably significantly lower when you're coming back. So tell us a little bit about what's going on there when when that meaning drops. Yeah. Well what what's really happening there is our minds are asking us the question, like, this is even matter in the grand scheme of things, right?
• 17:21
  Yeah. I just spent maybe a week with my family, or, you know, exploring portions of the world that are just beautiful and it's amazing to see. And so coming back to the monotony makes you wonder, like, what am I doing? That's this even matter? And that time away, it's it's resetting your personal priorities. It's, you know, I think we all are guilty of getting swept up and work and everything else too, where sometimes we lose sight of the people who matter most to us.
• 17:57
  Or we show up, less for them. And so in that time away, maybe you realize that and you're trying to reset or refine that harmony between, you know, work and,
• 18:10
  well-being and your personal life. And and then on top of that, that makes it feel really hard to to reconnect with your work.
• 18:21
  especially if you aren't very clear on the purpose,
• 18:24
  or what contribution you play within your organization to that overarching purpose, it's gonna be really challenging to to get reconnected.
• 18:34
  This is why I going back to all of the research on high performing teams, and like Project Aristotle that we talk about constantly with clients is at the very top of that pyramid is purpose. And you've got to have a sense of meaning to the work that you're doing.
• 18:55
  And, the less connected you are to that, the more challenging it's going to be to reengage.
• 19:01
  one of the big things that we preach to all of our clients across all different domains are you're able to connect who you are with what you do. Right. We can talk about self-determination theory. We can talk about all of the motivation literature. And it really gets into this idea of if you want to be motivated over long periods of time, over sustained periods of time, we have to connect it with either outcomes.
• 19:23
  We value or with who we are at our core, who we are at our identity there. So especially when we're able to make those connections like, okay, my day to day, sometimes it's really difficult for me to see what I'm doing and the impact of what I'm doing, but I know it aligns with these core values that I have of discipline, of collaboration, of teamwork, whatever that might look like for you personally.
• 19:45
  And that's where some of that befuddlement can come back. So especially when you're coming back from a vacation, one of the I guess the big piece of advice here would be, when in doubt, zoom out. Really take the time, zoom out there and see where your impacts are, where your contributions are in that way.
• 20:02
  I like that.
• 20:03
  The same artists. Yeah. When in doubt, zoom out. That's great. Very catchy as well. Anthony, you are honestly one of the the kings of catchphrases. I think, though I appreciate that. It really helps these these concepts and these things that we talk about stick. But the to your point, you're completely right. Like reminding yourself, what have I actually accomplished?
• 20:28
  What impact am I having? And in our Monday morning meetings, I know one thing Nell is very intentional with is asking us, where did you make an impact?
• 20:40
  And I think just asking yourself that question can help in this dimension of this engagement trap we're talking about.
• 20:46
  Simply asking yourself, where did I make an impact this week?
• 20:49
  Where did I make an impact today? Even if it's just I replied to an email and got a meeting scheduled. Right. Like that is an impact. And it adds value and meaning to the work that you're doing.
• 21:00
  I fully agree with everything on that piece.
• 21:04
  sometimes it's hard to zoom out.
• 21:05
  Right. Sometimes it's really difficult to not get caught in the, the monotony and the autopilot and the going through the motions. So especially when you're coming back from a vacation too. So just even you can think about where that impact is falling as well. Maybe it isn't your external facing work, maybe it is with clients, especially in our work.
• 21:23
  That's usually the case, but it could even be with teammates, right? If you if there are people that you lead or people that you work side by side with, or people that you even work under thinking about, okay, what is this? How does this contribute to who I am? Right? How does this align with who I am and what I do, and the impact that I want to have in my day to day, so I can have that sustained motivation over a long period of time.
• 21:44
  that reconnecting to the why behind the work that you're doing. And you know, I mentioned earlier that motivation doesn't just come out of nowhere. It comes through actions. But then what strengthens that motivation once you feel it is that meaning behind the work that you're doing right, that purpose behind the work that you're doing, the purpose behind the actions or steps you're taking to reignite that motivation?
• 22:12
  I guess too, when we talk about this. So we hit on the meaning portion and we hit on the overwhelm portion. Right. Like what else do people need to be considering when they they take their first step back in the office, whether that's their home office or whether they're working on site in a more corporate type setting or really any type of office setting.
• 22:29
  I said it earlier, I'll say it again. Give yourself some grace. Right. This is something that everybody experiences. So the first step is really kind of acknowledging and normalizing that this dip in motivation, this challenge of transitioning back into work mode is common, but it's also temporary. I get you will get back into the work mode.
• 22:55
  Trust me, it will come back.
• 22:57
  And then you're going to be wishing that you were in vacation mode. So, so just really understand and allow yourself the grace to transition back in.
• 23:09
  That's the first piece. And then also understanding that there's a cognitive component to this where our brains need time to reactivate, right? To go from recovery mode and to performance mode.
• 23:25
  All of my research is on and getting our brains to enter into that recovery mode. That's the detaching piece that's engaging and relaxation. That's feeling like you have autonomy over your life.
• 23:36
  So once you shift into that, that's great.
• 23:39
  But there's also a shift out of that, a shift into let me reactivate, let me reattach, let me get my energy levels back up,
• 23:48
  and enter into performance mode.
• 23:51
  So I think that those are two things that are really important to remember as you're transitioning from vacation to work.
• 23:58
  yeah. And I love the fact and it's great to have, a subject matter expert here on on burnout and on recovery, on the cognitive shift that is required to go from recovery mode to performance mode.
• 24:10
  And when we talk about the elite of the, in any domain, it's not like they do one or the other. It's not like they always are in performance mode or they're always in recovery mode. They know how to toggle on and off. They know when they need to listen to themselves, and they need to listen to their bodies when they need to listen to their minds as well.
• 24:27
  But okay, I need some time to recuperate and rejuvenate or okay, now is my time to put some to put my foot in the gas. That was my time to really hit it and like, take this to the next level and to operate at a different level. Especially now working with LA Davis, which is an advisory firm.
• 24:43
  And of course, we're surrounded by accountants and CPAs and people that specialize in audit. We talk about what their performance mode looks like from January to April, and the amount of grind that that they endure during that time. They're obviously in performance mode. They're in go, go, go. Their foot is pedal to the metal. And then obviously once May comes around and once June comes around, your brain needs to make that switch to that recovery mode.
• 25:10
  Yeah. That way you can begin to think more quickly. You can begin to reflect on all the things that you've done, all the things that you've accomplished, and you can recuperate for the next busy season, for the next busy cycle to get your feet back under, to get your mind back to where it needs to be
• 25:24
  In order to be an effective friend in business, as we always like to say here at Elliot Davis, you need that recovery mode. You ultimately need to get your mind right to be the best advocate for your people, both internally and externally.
• 25:38
  One thing I'll add to this is that guilt and shame are terrible motivators.
• 25:43
  We say that all the time and when you are, it doesn't matter. Entering into either recovery mode or performance mode, we tend to feel that guilt and shame on the recovery mode side, we feel guilty for doing nothing. We feel guilty for not working. We've talked about that before, that productivity monster. But on the flip, when you're coming back into performance mode, we feel guilty for not being at 100%.
• 26:10
  We feel guilty and shameful for,
• 26:13
  feeling like we need to ease back in rather than just jump right back in at 100%.
• 26:18
  and again, if you focus on that, it's going to be a terrible motivator. So you've got to reframe your expectations of shifting or toggling, as you said, from one mode to the other.
• 26:32
  yeah. I love the fact that you brought up the shame and guilt being being a terrible motivator, and especially going back to some of that. Well, this is your day one back. And then you look to the people left and right to you. They're still in the they're still in the swing of things. Right. They're still they still have that performance on that momentum.
• 26:47
  And they never talk never toggle it off. Yeah. Or maybe they haven't tired off for a little bit of time here. So you look to the people of the left and right and you're like wow, Gabby is dominating right now. She's firing on all cylinders. Why can't I do this? Why am I not here right now? So it really does get back to running your own race really does get back to okay, let's ease into this transition.
• 27:07
  Let's transition here. And again like we'll reference athletes. There is a bit of periodization that exists right. It isn't like okay 120% go like you are all firing on all cylinders. You are pushing your mind and body in the next. No, there's a ramp up. So what does that ramp up look like for you to slowly ease to that performance?
• 27:25
  About to slowly ease back into 100%.
• 27:28
  Well said. You know, I think we're at a good point here to give our listeners some practical strategies, some actionable steps. They can start taking as we are entering this. You know, we're mid-July,
• 27:40
  a lot of people have kind of gone on vacation, come back from vacation or going on their final summer vacations before hunkering down.
• 27:49
  For the fall. And I would love to give our listeners some concrete strategies they can implement for bringing all of this together.
• 28:00
  if you're listening right now and you have that, the sticky note up, or if you have the, 25 bullet points, this, this tactical reset, which should resonate with you pretty well. And, I know one thing we talked about in one of the groceries responsibility of time boxing and really identifying, just like, hey, what are the three things I need to get done, either for the day or for the week?
• 28:18
  And you can do that exact same thing when you come out of a vacation, when you come back into that office setting, into your work setting, whatever it looks like. What are three things that I need to get done this week? That's the question you should ask yourself. And from there, you can chunk each of them into some of those next steps, right?
• 28:34
  So they could be three massive projects that you did make headway towards. What does it look like to break those down into digestible steps and what I can do hour by hour, maybe. What's my goal at lunch? What's my goal at 2:00? What's my goal to get to at 4:00? So really just taking those big scary to do list and to be able to chunk them down into, okay, what does it look like for my next 30 minutes?
• 28:57
  What does it look like for me to make some meaningful headway in this into a more digestible chunk?
• 29:02
  this is that first piece of really bringing the structure back, giving yourself clarity around what you need to be doing to get back into work mode. Right? So I love that. That's really the first first strategy will equip our listeners with this tactical reset. Identify the top three priorities for your week. The next thing, next tool we'll give our listeners is what we call a meaning reset.
• 29:26
  Right. So write down three recent wins. What are three things that big or small have happened that are positive in relation to your work? Whether that's I answered all my emails today,
• 29:41
  outlined my top three priorities for the week. Maybe that's the only when you had that day. But, whatever it is, find a way to write down three recent wins.
• 29:51
  And one way to that your work connects to something larger than yourself. So not only did I respond to all my emails today, but I got a new client scheduled who,
• 30:02
  needs some help and I'm going to be able to help them now. And I think that that is just in the work that we do that brings a sense of meaning, right?
• 30:11
  Like I got you scheduled. I'm going to be able to to see if I can help you now.
• 30:16
  yeah, I honestly, it's a perfect Segway. And it's the last tool we'll talk about is this engagement reset. Right. If you're able to use that meaning reset to go okay. What is one way that my work connects to something bigger than me?
• 30:27
  You can take that a step further. Okay. More broadly, how does this fit work, fit into who I am and who I want to be? How does it align with my core values? If I have core values of collaboration, of integrity, of discipline, think through or through your day to day, almost give yourself a calendar audit and be like, okay, where in my day am I effectively living up to who I want to be?
• 30:50
  And of course, in those times that's where you're able to effectively zoom out. You're able to see the bigger picture and ultimately tie who you are to what you do in a more effective way. And that way when you come out of that vacation, when you come back from a beach and when you come back from Italy or wherever that vacation ended up taking you, you're able to, to dip your feet in the water a little bit easier.
• 31:12
  You're able to get a little bit easier traction in that sense.
• 31:16
  yeah. Hearing you talk about visiting Italy and I'm just jealous. And I wish that were my life right now. No, but I think this is a great note to close on is that regardless of where you're at in the timeline of vacation mode or work mode, these are strategies, these reset tools.
• 31:36
  We just went through the tactical, the meaning and the engagement resets are things to keep in your your mental toolbox of okay, when I encounter this because I will, what do I do?
• 31:49
  You know, I thinking about where I'm at in the summer timeline and it's I don't have any more trips coming up. So, a little bit more on that, that work mode now, itching for that vacation mode already again.
• 32:02
  But
• 32:03
  but I know a lot of people are kind of on the flip about either coming back from vacation or getting ready to go on their final summer vacation. So just make sure that you're understanding that there will be transition period. Don't overload yourself too much when you, you know, come back. Tell yeah through what our next week looks like and have yes your calendar swamped with meetings all day long.
• 32:27
  Try to give yourself a little bit of grace to ease back again. Beautifully said, Gabby. Beautifully said.
• 32:35
  well, thank you all for tuning in.
• 32:37
  Please remember to, like, subscribe.
• 32:40
  send in any topics that you might be interested in hearing about. We love you for your feedback and talking about, topics that are of interest to you. So thank you all. And we will look forward to the next podcast. Okay. I'll