Ah the zen vacation, the year long sabbatical, the parental leave, the short mini-break where you immersed yourself in 4 days at the beach or hiking in the back woods somewhere.

And, now it’s time to head back to work.

Heading back to work can sometimes feel like a mixed bag of emotions no matter if you run your own business or are an employee.

There have been years where I’ve reluctantly gone back (almost in tears), some years when I’ve been indifferent and years where I genuinely looked forward to starting back on Monday morning. Luckily, the latter has been much more often.

Where ever you are…the feelings you have when you’re ’heading back in’ can be telling. We often want to push them aside and get on with it, but did you know that those emotions and feelings hold incredible amounts of information for you?

If you’re feeling reluctant, anxious, dread, uncertainty, sadness, joy, or excitement, there’s information in here not to be shoved aside, but to be experienced and listened to. And then, what to do about that information?

As many locations begin to slowly open up, some faster than others, I don’t know about you but for me there comes a mix of relief and anticipation for the things we’ve missed: connection, hugs, seeing people we care about, traveling, greater sense of stability & security.

And, reservation and cautiousness. For me the reservation comes from, not wanting things to go back to exactly the way it was….I want to incorporate some of the changes and things I’ve come to carve out space for: a greater sense of my own purpose, more frequent consideration of my personal wellbeing, making space as a nuclear family in busy weeks, and more space in my calendar and shifting my relationship with time.

Have you noticed any of these things too?

Amidst the worry, anxiety, and fear of the past 15+ months, the challenges have been great. But, what came from that were new perspectives, new ways of working and being, new ways of relating with each other and much more.

This isn’t a post about time-blocking or using your out-of-office responder strategically. While these can be effective strategies to put boundaries around your work, what I’m talking about here is a step before all of that.

First off - Is the work you’re doing…. the RIGHT work?

I can hear you saying – yes absolutely!

Before you exit out of this page, I want to challenge you to really think about that.

Are you doing the work that will move you towards your goal?

I've been asked many times by clients, "How do you shut everything off at night?", "Even when I'm not at work, I'm at work!".

There are three things I most often recommend to help with this: