Rhythm: Part 2 - life when you get home

Welcome to part two on my rhythm series. Following on from Part 1 that looks at travel rhythms, I wanted to share my experiences of the last week after we got back from our holiday.

The return to the real world is always hard. This is particularly noticeable when you’ve had a good time away and you’ve been away for an extended period of time. The longer the break, the harder the thump!

Back to the operating rhythm

The first week after a holiday is a combination of tiredness, adjustments and having to work a little harder at everything. What used to be daily and automatic starts to feel like doing everything for the first time. You are a little disorientated in your own world.

Sometimes it feels like your brain is misfiring. I can recall a few moments where I felt like I had a sudden moment of lucidity in stark contrast to the increased effort that was going in on tasks like packing for work and organising a meal.

Good bye travel rhythm, hello daily rhythm.

I wrote a bit about how an extended break acts like a reset button. Therefore, it is logical that when you return, it is another reset but without the blank page offered by travel. You are walking back into your house, your life and your commitments.. You need to sleep, eat and do things like go to work.

But what about the other habits and routines in your life?

Putting the good stuff back

The post-holiday period is something I am very mindful of. Firstly, you need to get back into your good habits. This is starting as you mean to go on.

I’ve written in the past about good habits in my Normal Persons Guide to High Performance (NPGHP) series about a year ago. Last week was about putting back into place my baseline habits like sleep, diet and movement. It was hard and it always is. Take sleep; timezone changes, crappy airplane sleep and post-travel tiredness (as well as your brain working harder) means that getting back into your get up, go-to-bed routine is tricky. I eased my way back into a normal wake up time, starting at 630 and jumping back 15mins each day. Sometimes it felt comical going to bed at 730-8pm in the first few days but it was worth it for a longer sleep.

Another thing I noted that was that I really missed people. Reconnecting with my work colleagues, my football team and my friends felt so good. It showed me the power and importance of connection in my life.

I want to add a second reflection here too; be kind to yourself.

As seen above, you will have hard moments, so don’t beat yourself up if things don’t go to plan or get straight back to what they were.

Something like exercise is a good way to show how this works. Putting regular exercise back into my life was a priority for my first week, however I made it achievable and flexible.

My goal for the week was to do something most days. Nothing more than that. I also made it easy. A 30min bike in the garage, a couple of walks, a couple of short runs. Wednesday was a 520am wakeup for our WNOW group which would have been easy to skip. I used the motivation of showing up for others to get that first one done and felt better for it.

It isn’t the week where you should expect to be 100% fresh and motivated so make it as easy and achievable as possible. Then take another step back towards normal in week 2.

The opportunity for new things and perspectives

Similar to going away, the reset of returning allows you to think about things you would like to add, and potentially things you would like to take away.

I find the big disruption and reflection that comes with travel usually makes returning home a little overwhelming. Firstly, I feel like there is a high level of simplicity while you are away. You prove that you can live with a small bag of clothes and come back to a wardrobe. You live in simple accommodation and come back to a house full of stuff. You have a lot of time and freedom and then are faced with a list of things that you used to think you had to do.

Last week was one where I didn’t rush back into my other habits. I took a little time to stop and reflect.

There is a feeling of simplicity that I experienced travelling that I don’t want to lose.

An example of this was my to-do-list. While I ticked a few things along while I was away, this week was a moment of realising that I pile a bunch of things up that just become a chore on a weekly basis - e.g. email newsletter subscriptions and podcast subscriptions. I have used this as a purge moment - pick my favourites and delete the others. I also found myself saying no to a few things this week which was my attempt to commit to simplicity.

Let things go. Take away.

In terms of adding in, I’ve been pondering a few things for this new season but have taken an exploratory approach before over-committing. It’s been important that I put back what I need to first, and use the space to think a little more about how much free time I actually have for new things. Is it really free time? Let’s test that notion before I dive in and fill it.

It’s time to set a new rhythm and to start a new season.

And it’s pretty exciting.

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