What is Your Holiday Recovery Ritual or Plan?

Many lead­ers I speak to are in a mad rush to get things wrapped up before the hol­i­days and the end of 2023. Many say they are tired and know they need to dou­ble down to fin­ish the year strongly.

And the hol­i­days – some­times crazy with fam­i­ly oblig­a­tions, errands, and social­iz­ing with friends – aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly the down­time you need to charge you up for the new year.

More than ever, now is the time to not only make sure you do your resilience rit­u­als (chap­ter 3 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First) – a key dri­ver to make sure we stay strong, resilient and thrive – you also need a recov­ery plan.

Plan Ahead and Pro­tect Your Downtime

I love my work, fam­i­ly and friends and am high­ly social. So, it’s easy to say ​‘yes’ to activ­i­ties and invi­ta­tions from peo­ple I love to spend time with. But, at some point, too much of a good thing can mean zero downtime.

For many years, when I pushed myself too hard and did a lot of inter­na­tion­al trav­el, I was reg­u­lar­ly forced into recov­ery rit­u­als because I’d get sick com­ing into or dur­ing the holidays.

So, I’ve learned to reg­u­lar­ly fol­low my resilience rit­u­als and to proac­tive­ly plan for full recov­ery time to allow my whole sys­tem to turn off, relax and enjoy what’s happening.

• Just before the hol­i­days, I spend a few days of qual­i­ty time with my chil­dren to soak up the sun some­where. Then, I arrange to spend time with friends out of the country.
• And I set aside unstruc­tured, unsched­uled time dur­ing the hol­i­days and give myself per­mis­sion to com­plete­ly relax and make room for things like binge-watch­ing a Net­flix show, if I feel like it.

What­ev­er your style and cir­cum­stance, it’s impor­tant to be proac­tive and take every oppor­tu­ni­ty to pre-plan and pro­tect recov­ery time that works for you.

The Chal­lenge

• What things have you done, his­tor­i­cal­ly, to help you to max­i­mize time off to recov­er and recharge?
• If you don’t you know, what could those rit­u­als be for your body, mind and spir­it this year?

Addi­tion­al Blogs

• Dou­ble Your Per­son­al Resilience
• Teach Your Chil­dren Men­tal Resilience
• Are You Get­ting Sev­en Kinds of Rest?

Old Pod­casts

• Exec­u­tive Burnout: Build­ing Your Resilience
• How to Pre­vent Mondayitis