Real Vacation: The Cure for Burn-Out
For those that know me, this year has been a little tougher than years past. I've had a few new personal dilemmas crop up this year while dealing with some frustration over lack of movement in my career. Both of these concerns would alternately feed off each other all day, like a baton passing off between day and night, leaving me exhausted and eventually burned out.
Coupled with the longest part of the work year (the space between New Years and Memorial day with no company holidays), my confidence and attitude began to wither away. By March I was starting to get snippy with co-workers and my wife. By April I had moved past anger into apathy about work (my personal life was making a large shift then, more on that on another blog post). When May and June rolled around, I was distracted and losing focus both at work and home. I was near complete burn-out.
In the middle of June, I finally took a vacation. I took ten days off of work and stacked a trip with my best friend with a getaway for my anniversary with my wife. Both vacations were very low-key and didn't require much planning or structure, just time spent relaxing. Never before in my life had I needed a vacation more, and I didn't even know it until two days after my trip started.