When you are the CEO of a start-up, it can be difficult to take a break. There's never a time where there's not work to be done, and I'm constantly assaulted with the sensation that if I step away for too long, everything we've built with crumble.
Now, that's not reality. But it is reality that I have a lot of daily tasks and those daily tasks don't disappear just because I need to take a vacation.
Which I did! And Owl's Nest kept chugging along because we aren't a company of one. And even though the work I do is vitally important, my work is not the only work that keeps us moving and going.
It's also okay to admit our limitations as a small start-up; to admit that it's okay if things run a little slower while the CEO is out of the country for ten days. Someday we'll be bigger and it will be easier for all of us to take the vacations, and the breaks, that we need!
So where did I go, and did I find it easy at all to actually vacation or rest? Well, my husband and I took a dreamy tour of Southern Ireland. We love Ireland; we went back in 2014 and have longed to return ever since. Thanks to an accumulation of travel rewards, we were able to fly there for free this year, and thanks in HUGE part to Chronicle Travel Company, we avoided all the stress of planning our own tour (and were able to support another small business). All great things!
But unfortunately it wasn't all bliss and wonder for us on the Emerald Isle.
I have a very difficult time, as I always say, "shutting off my brain," which can lead to some sort of physical stress collapse, eventually, if my stress levels are just too high. The timing of the trip with all the work I pushed myself to get done at Owl's Nest before leaving meant that by the time we left, I was stretched too thin. I got sick and stayed sick for most of the duration of the trip, and then I got sick again on coming home.
My husband and I enjoyed Ireland—how do you not enjoy Ireland?—and I smiled for all our pictures and kept my misery off social media. But I was exhausted, headachy, sinusey, and sore (trying to treat yourself for a sinus infection while overseas is not ideal).
The moral of the trip experience is that work is good, but so is rest. And we need both and to balance each to stay healthy and enjoy good things in life. I've always known this and tried to protect this balance in the people who work with and for me, but it's the hardest to protect this balance in and for myself. The vacation was good for my soul, but what my body really needed was a week of rest.
Now that I've had both a long vacation (while sick) and a week of rest to recover, I'm finally feeling rejuvenated and ready to move forward once again with all the good Owl's Nest work that we are doing. Catching up is hard to do. Being a mom to four, CEO, author, editor, and columnist—it's all hard to do. But what's harder is not being able to do any of it because I've worked myself into the ground. Here's to a better work-life-rest balance as I head into summer 2022! I can't wait to share more of what's happening with the business in the upcoming months.
~ Karin