Some people view travel as 100% fun and enjoyable, while others view it as nothing but work and a drudgery. Me, I try to be Switzerland, neutral. While I always enjoy travelling to new places and meeting new folks, sometimes the things that go along with travel are not as enjoyable. While I love going to conferences and seminars and learning new things, I don’t enjoy the 16–18-hour days, little to no sleep because it’s not your bed and your away from your family, sometimes not eating that great due to time constraints or locations, long lines and crowded airports, my ever-present air sickness, etc. If I just focused on the things, I don’t like about travelling, I would never do it!
If I focus on the why I’m travelling and what I am going to gain out of doing that, I find I am much more motivated to push through and persevere the tough times ahead, knowing they are for a season and the rewards outweigh the costs. Years ago, I learned that if I was willing to do what others are not, I would have what others do not. Whether that meant knowledge, lifestyle, finances, peace of mind, it didn’t matter. If I wanted the status quo, I could just be a lemming and do what everyone else is doing.
Those of you who know me, know I chose not to be a lemming. So when I found my motivation levels getting extremely low, the harder it got and the more adversity I had to go through to accomplish my goals, I had to change it up. So, I started motivating myself with a reward for my efforts. I found that often I was coming back to my family so completely drained and it would take days to recover that it really wasn’t good time for them either, so I changed it. Now when I have to travel for 2 days or more, I always stay an extra day. Sure, I tell myself I’m going to accomplish a bunch of work, but I have found that it was just a lie and I needed to stop telling myself that. I need that extra day to sleep, or eat some good meals, or go to the beach, or get a massage, whatever I need. If it was a 5-day travel, I will also make sure there is something fun tied in like paragliding or kayaking or riding motorcycles.
This picture is of great little hotel I found a couple blocks from Redondo Beach. It was walking distance to great food, and the beach and there was a great massage parlor 1 block away as well. This was especially needed after 6 days of conferences and travel. The mountains and the beach are happy places for me, generally anything outside bring me joy, but those 2 help me to refocus for sure. I can take a notebook with me and just download all that is circling in my brain to revisit later, then rest and enjoy the smells, the sounds, and the gorgeous views.
How many of you are remembering to plan fun or rewards for yourself when you work hard to accomplish something? Families used to do a better job of this, but since covid has obliterated so many things, I thought it would be a good reminder. We all need time to recharge, but we all need to push ourselves at times and sometimes we forget about rewarding ourselves, so we have something to look forward to at the end of the hard work. Like making the family spend a whole Saturday to clean out the garage, then rewarding them with a visit to the ice cream parlor, or a trip to the lake after church on Sunday. It doesn’t have to be something grandiose like a new iPhone, although the kids always want those things, it’s just something that we enjoy that will tell our brain I’m happy with finishing that task or pushing through that hard work and I’m enjoying it now. Retrain your brain with something positive instead of constantly focusing on the negative that the world and media would have you do. You’ll have a much happier life!
