You deserve a vacation. Here’s why

No matter what context you’re in right now, a summer vacation is well-deserved (unless you’re already on vacation… and then that’s great!).

Some say that entrepreneurs never take vacations, or that they shouldn’t.

What do you think about this?

I don’t agree.

I believe in “work-life balance” and believe that you can achieve a balance if you want to, because we all need a balance.

But I also agree with the concept of “sprint – break – sprint – break”. That is, you shoot hard for 1-2-3 months, then take a break to recharge your batteries. Then repeat. In this mode you are like a leopard that goes out hunting and relaxes after getting its prey. That’s how I was at times and I think it’s ok.

On the other hand, I understand the need to work hard to achieve your goals. There is also pressure behind it (often self-imposed and sometimes unjustified) to do everything possible to get projects off the ground.

Or you have an idea and want to exploit it as quickly as possible. Or you want to fix something that went wrong as quickly as possible. Or you’re on the wave and you have a lot of requests and you want to honor as many as possible because in the future you don’t have the same certainty that it will be the same… and then you don’t take a break now because you want to take it later.

I understand perfectly. I find myself in everything he says above. And in my experience with other entrepreneurs and industry peers, that’s pretty much how things are.

But I warn you: don’t work too hard because you lose in other parts.

Many people who are passionate about their work are very focused on development and growth. They immerse themselves in work and forget to give importance to other important things: health and relationships.

There are 4 pillars you have to keep in mind to have a good life. All are closely related to each other. Work is related to business relationships. There let’s say you’re fine if you’re on “work mode enabled”. But health is also important.

When I worked a lot, I forgot to eat. And automatically I ended up in a caloric deficit and lost muscle mass. In my case, because I have a fairly low body fat, I was losing muscle. Why? Because if you are hungry, your body consumes from its fat reserves, and then from the muscles. So I ended up losing weight and starting over with all the progress I made with going to the gym and dieting.

On the other hand, health also includes movement + rest. If you sit in front of the laptop for a long time, in the same position, you end up with back pain and maybe even worse: you end up with a herniated disc. It’s a common problem among laptop users. But even if you work in an environment that involves a lot of physical work, it’s still difficult. In this case, breaks are welcome and so is warming up the muscles before starting the program.

In all cases, rest is essential. Both physical and mental rest. Otherwise, you end up in “burnout”. The state of burnout is very nasty, especially if you have urgent tasks. Indeed, you feel exhausted and it seems that the work is no longer going.

This can often happen if you don’t have balance.

For this balance I have come up with a formula that seems to work for me and may be useful for you. Maybe you can adopt it yourself.

It looks something like this:

I wake up in the morning around 8-9, sometimes even 10. When I have meetings in the morning I set my alarm, when I don’t have meetings, I don’t set an alarm at all. It depends on how late I go to bed and how restful my sleep was. I generally wake up rested.

Afterwards I take a shower with cold water (I turn on the shower directly with cold water on myself and stay like that for about 2 minutes). I am already used to this terror. The first weeks were more horror. I do this because the cold shower has many benefits:

– increases blood circulation

– wakes you up instantly

– lowers your cortisol level

– increases the power of the immune system

After I finish the bathroom chores, I drink water and start working.. either from the bed, or from the office, or from the terrace. It depends on how I feel. On “lazy” mornings, I just open my laptop and work from bed. will it be ok Will it be bad? Of course, I work to work. I do my job. And for me it’s ok. I also had more “spartan” or very disciplined moments with waking up at 6, specific routine, etc. But it was not sustainable for me. And I was getting a little tired.

Finally, let’s come back.

So I said I’m getting to work, right? Well, that’s what I do until around 12 – 13 when I take a break for an hour to eat breakfast. For breakfast, I’ve already been eating the same kind of food every day for over 1 year: eggs (scrambled eggs/poached eggs/boiled eggs) + bacon/pork loin + something on the side (bread/salad/eggplant/roe…) and musai cheese, because I’m a fan of cheese (mozarella/feta/cream cheese/grated cheese mix..it depends).

Speaking of eggs. There have been various studies that prove that they don’t raise your cholesterol and that the old idea that you were told that eating a lot of eggs is not healthy was actually false. Do you know what is not good to eat? Sugar. I removed almost everything from my diet. I rarely take a piece of cake, but even then I can’t bear to eat much because it seems too sweet.

Good. And after breakfast, I also drink coffee: a latte. Here I either prepare it myself, or I go to a cafe and work from there. If I have scheduled meetings, I do it in such a way that I am prepared for them. Otherwise, I start working again until I have lunch at about 5 pm. Then I work again until 7-8 pm when I go to the gym. After the gym I have dinner and that’s what a working day looks like for me.

Some days I also make time for socializing. Sometimes I take random vacations and go somewhere and relax. It depends on what priorities I have and what work-related emergencies I have. I also work on weekends sometimes.

So, it looks like I work quite a lot, and I kind of do. You might be thinking, well, what kind of lifestyle is that? Well, that’s the trick: work is part of our lives. But if you do what you like and what you are passionate about, you don’t feel time passing and you don’t have problems that tomorrow is Monday or that the weekend is coming. If I didn’t have appointments and meetings I wouldn’t even know what day it is. This flexibility is great.

And because I eat healthy, exercise regularly, take breaks when I feel the need, sleep well at night, and sometimes take breaks from technology, I have a kind of sustainable balance that allows me to progress with work without losing out on other areas.

But let’s get back to the holiday.

I take vacations, but honestly I can’t stand not doing anything for a long time. I don’t feel like it anymore. So for me, vacations also include the creative side: I write, film, manage… because I would be terribly bored to stay more than 1 day on my stomach in the sun. I need to create, to move, to socialize. And then, if it’s just the state or laziness, it’s not really the strong point. That’s why I prefer some vacations to be more dynamic: to travel, to visit several different places. So, even if I’m not working, at least I have this dynamic of new locations and experiences.

But that’s my situation. Maybe it suits you, maybe not. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. It depends on the context and the needs of each person. At the moment I’m ok.. bachelor :)), without children… each as he can.

But you still deserve a vacation.

There is room for everything. I’ve learned that it’s good to take your time and take it easy sometimes, because things settle by themselves anyway. And it’s not the end of the world if that thing you really want doesn’t happen today.

If you’ve read this far, it means I wrote something right. I hope you take this letter as a source of inspiration and remember to take well-deserved breaks.

Stay strong!

Andrei Isip