As the summer holiday season comes to a close, many of us look towards our return to work with mixed feelings. September can evoke feelings of sadness or nostalgia as longer days and relaxed schedules move toward more structure and mountains of emails instead of trails.

One huge bonus to having a great break is to pay attention to how you feel returning to your work and daily routine. Staying curious is one of the best ways to monitor your growth and understand what changes need to be made to create the best environment possible to thrive. 

Perhaps you had time during a summer break to reflect on what else you want from life outside of your career.  Too often, we are so focused on achieving our career goals that we neglect the other things that matter to us in life, such as spending time with family and friends, indulging our hobbies, traveling for pleasure and learning new skills or languages. Coming back to the workplace after a break is a good opportunity to reset your priorities and set some new goals for the months ahead. 

Or perhaps you return from a break refreshed and renewed and still lack a bit of zest to dive back into your daily life? This is a time to get really curious. Why are you hesitating? What are you dreading or avoiding? How are you feeling in your body? 

If you occasionally have days where you don’t feel like going to work, it might not necessarily indicate a need for a career change. Many people have occasional off days. However, if you consistently dread going to work for an extended period, it may be time to think about changing your role, career direction or current work situation in order to improve your well-being and career satisfaction. 

For me, I am always excited to return to my coaching work. I truly love what I do and am grateful for the people I am able to serve. This has not always been my experience returning to work and I know that this is not the experience of so many individuals. It can be however!  I have helped hundreds of clients to find more meaningful ways to bring their unique strengths, skills, interests and values into the world. I am excited to continue to work with individuals in times of transition and especially those who find themselves uninspired by their Monday mornings that lie ahead.

Self care is not limited to spa days and vacations, self care happens everyday by simply doing small things to meet our basic and most essential needs: drinking enough water, eating nourishing food, and allowing our brains to recharge through sleep, breaks, rest, play and connection. It helps to think about self care in micro moments or micro acts; the behaviors of self care. Many of us have already mastered a few micro acts of self care like keeping water near your workspace, taking short breaks throughout the day, getting outside and exercising. What are the small and simple things that fill your soul? 

Micro moments are little moments of calm that help to combat the daily stresses of life. They also allow us to reconnect with ourselves. Try to incorporate more of these small moments into your everyday experience, start with a few small micro acts.

Here are some to try out this summer when you may have a bit more spaciousness in your schedule:

1. Start with your community.  Take a few extra moments to check in with someone and maybe even lend a hand. Give a random compliment or help a neighbor with a mundane task. These micro moments of connection are reminders that we are human beings and part of a community.
2. Leave white space.  Just as pausing for a moment between an exhale and the next inhale can help release anxiety, creating white space between activities can help transitions. Notice how you feel in your body at the end of a long exhale before taking the next breath. There is a natural pause before the inhale. In this transitional pause, there is space. Lingering in this spacious white space can help release anxiety before jumping into the next activity.
3. Create a new ritual or tradition.  I welcome you to create your own rituals for the transition into summer that have meaning for you and your family. Rituals help us establish a sense of belonging and offer a touchstone of connection. For the individual, it is a time to reconnect with yourself.  Self care rituals can be very simple like walking in the grass barefoot, lighting a candle or sipping a cup of your favorite tea (or lemonade). Family rituals can also be fun like creating an outdoor dance party with friends, starting a smoothie day or hosting an ice cream social. Research has shown that regular family rituals promote better communication skills, increased emotional well-being, and stronger relationships among family members.

After years of paying for a variety of sports, arts and music lessons for my daughter, last year I decided to pay for some surf lessons for myself.  It’s not often that I invest in something non-work related and I did feel a tinge of guilt. However, I can tell you that my investment in learning to surf has paid off many times over. 

Research shows that those who spend time learning each week are more likely to feel that their lives have purpose and meaning, which in turn increases their overall happiness and wellbeing.

Learning to surf as an adult is humbling!  Many times I go out into the ocean I am scared, but I push through because I know I am growing, improving and will be able to surf for many years to come. I have learned about the ocean environment, reading tide and wave charts, how to paddle and most of all a huge lesson in patience….the ocean delivers waves when it wants to. 

I love the entire experience and highly recommend spending some time and money investing in something that will fill your soul. Here are some more reasons to invest in yourself now!

1. Open Up New Career Opportunities

Investing in yourself helps you understand your natural strengths and increase your skills. You feel more confident overall as you gain skills that transfer to other areas of your life. You are your greatest asset and developing your skill-set will boost your market value, whether you are seeking a promotion from your current role or applying for a new job.

I worked with a client recently who decided to train at her local ski mountain to become a ski patroller. She realized her natural leadership skills through the course and began to apply them in her work as a video game developer.  As her confidence in her leadership skills increased on the snow, we started to apply them in her work setting which led her landing a new role as a product manager.

2. Create New Neural Pathways

One of the best ways to grow your brain is by trying new things. New experiences create new neural pathways, expand our memories in a youthful-like way and stretch our perceived time which leaves us feeling more invigorated. The mental stimulation provided by challenging yourself to learn new skills can help limit the adverse effects of aging on the memory and mind. And by making small changes to your lifestyle today, you can create a higher return for your future!

Have you lost your mojo for a project that you started in the New Year?  I have been challenged to get back into a flow on many projects that I started including writing this post! The challenge shows up as resistance and I fight the urge to put my head down and push through it or to get distracted and focus elsewhere. And while resistance can be a nuisance, it is something almost all of us will inevitably feel from time to time.

Growing up I was used to getting lost with my mother as she had a challenging time with directions. Often when we ventured off of a routine route, we ended up lost for some time. She was used to operating like this and would find a way to make the being lost part interesting. We would find all kinds of new adventures from roadside antique shops to a new pond to search for tadpoles. I thought it was fun until I realized that I also have a challenging sense of direction.  

Being “directionally challenged” has been part of my life since orienting on my own. I have developed some coping skills over the years, but recently I have been noticing some advantages of being lost. Once I began driving to unfamiliar places, I adopted some practices that would help me get from A to B. I studied my routes and became very good at reading maps. I learned to look for familiar landmarks and to ask for directions early and often. Of all of the practices I used to stay on track, the one that has served me most (besides the invention of GPS) is to adopt being lost as a mindset. Understanding that being lost is not inherently a bad or scary place. That you can find interesting new things and people and that your ability to focus increases. So I too adopted a good attitude about being lost.