267: Stress Free Vacation Planning

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because of the hustle grind, repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It had it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure entrepreneur best-selling author speaker, mom, and rule-breaker I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about. The Intentional Advantage is doing live on our own terms.

Defying the status quo and seeing ourselves outside of the tidy definition. Society’s name for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your every day and choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world. And it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted because we were told they were truths. Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

Let’s choose to be extraordinary.

Hello. Hello everyone. And welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 267. We’re doing something fun for the next couple of episodes, but next three or four episodes really I’m calling it the summer series and what this is is it’s an opportunity for us to go back and revisit revamp,

 

refresh some old favorite episodes. Listen, we’ve got 266 episodes behind us. There’s a lot. And I know a lot of you go back and you listen all the way from season one, which God love ya. That’s a lot of listening to me. I don’t think I could listen to me for that long, but what I love is that you guys love to go back and you like to listen to these old episodes.

 

And I thought, you know, there’s some great episodes in our archives. Why don’t we bring those forward for the summer months? Let’s showcase them. Let’s revamp them though and refresh them a little bit. So that’s what we’re going to be doing. This is our summer series. We’re going to be doing it for July and August. And I’m excited because I’ve been diving into,

 

like I said, there’s a lot of episodes I’ve been diving into different seasons cherry picking some of my very favorites that really tie into where we are now with our current seasons and the things that we’ve been talking about here on the show and the things I’m hearing from you. The first episode I thought of when it was time for me to choose which episodes to really showcase during the summer series was episode 129,

 

which was way back in season 10. We just finished season 21. Just to remind you to give you an idea of how far back it was. But back in season 10, we were exploring the concept of bending time and bending time is really about being creative and how we view time, how we spend our days, how we schedule the 24 hours each of us have in our days,

 

it’s finding harmony between obligations and our wishlist, right? It’s really about looking for windows of time and then using that time to fill it with our priorities. So in that season, we talked about opportunities in our day to be more productive. We talked about things like batching tasks and streamlining activities. We looked for ways to be effective with the way we spent our time.

 

You know, and then we really talked about how important it is to gain back some time in our day and use those precious minutes, doing things that are important to us. So bending time is really about being creative with how we spend our time so we can fill our days with things that truly fulfill us. Because when we fill our days with our priorities,

 

we fill our days with happiness. It’s really about filling our days with intention, being mindful about what we add to our calendars or how we spend our time, right? And truly, we cannot have a conversation about time and filling that time with intention without talking about vacations. That’s what we’re going to talk about today because there’s no better way to build a day with your own priorities than to take a vacation.

 

And to feel that time with the activities you’re really passionate about surrounding yourself with the people you are passionate about, the people that you love. So today we’re going to focus on why vacations are important for our mental and physical health and why we really need to take those breaks, because I know you need a little bit of pushing sometimes to take the breaks.

 

And then we’re going to talk about getting ready for vacation mode, how to reduce the stress during vacation. So we can actually enjoy that time off novel concept there. Right? We want to go on vacation, be like we’re enjoying our time, come back, feeling refreshed and recharged. All right. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing a refresh of episode 129 and our season of bending time.

 

So let’s go ahead and dive into it because first thing I want to talk about is the idea that you need to take a vacation. I mean, all the time we hear from people who say, oh, I just don’t have time to take a vacation or I’m just too busy at work right now. There’s just not enough time, right? Or there’s so much going on at work that it just stresses me out to take time off.

 

But the truth is taking breaks is so good for us. And it actually makes us more productive in the long run. If we skip the breaks, if we just continually push ourselves on the treadmill of life, well, we’re going to wear ourselves out and we’re really not going to be our most productive selves. So I’ve had this conversation time and time again,

 

with my own team. I’ve had employees who tell me, oh, I don’t have any time scheduled off in the summer because I look, I look for my team. I’m like, Hey, I don’t see any breaks in your summer. I’d ask you that you’re going on any days off, you’re not taking any vacation days and they’ll say, oh,

 

there’s just so much to do. There’s a lot that goes on in the, you know, in years where we have the fall launch, there’s lots going on with that. And we’ve had books that have launched in the past. We had the joy of missing out and we had on purpose of course, launching. And the truth is there’s always work to be done.

 

And this is what I tell my team members. There’s always new projects or a new event or something going on, especially if I’m your boss, because I’m always throwing out new ideas. I’m always coming up with new concepts. And what if we try this? But the truth is, if we wait until we naturally have the space to take a break,

 

we’re never going to take the break because it just isn’t going to happen. We need to carve out that time intentionally for ourselves. And I, I know that I am doing that. That’s part of the reason why I’m doing this summer series is this is going to free up a little bit of my space and my time I’m enjoying going back and looking at these episodes.

 

But I also know that this is going to allow me to batch these episodes so I can take a little bit more time off and really be present. I’ve got Jack home from college this summer. I’ve got Kay here as well. I want to really focus in on my family as much as I can. So I’m taking some time off by doing this right.

 

Even though you’re getting new episodes, there are revamped or refreshed. So it’s not taking me as long to really dive into the research behind them and everything else. And that’s what I want for my team. I want my team to feel like they can take a breather. I want you to feel like you can take a breather, listen, as a boss,

 

as somebody who manages other people by doing that, I am making sure that my team comes back and they are on fire and excited for the work that we’re doing when they’re in the office. But I’m also allowing them to be on fire for what they’re doing in their personal lives as well. And I know you’ve heard me say this once or twice or 10 million times,

 

but our bodies need breaks. Our bodies require breaks. Rests is not a reward for great work to happen. Rest is a requirement for great work to happen. That’s a direct quote from the joy of missing out because it’s the truth we need rest. So we can come back and be our very best selves and studies show that our performance actually increases after taking breaks for various links,

 

whether we’re talking about a 10 to 15 minute break or even a micro break of 30 seconds or taking a nice long break, 90 minutes or two hours during the Workday, that can be amazing for keeping your energy up and your brain functioning. It’s best. It’s so funny to me that we don’t think twice about resting. After we go out for a jog or doing weights at the gym,

 

we, we know our bodies. We know our muscles need to recover, right? But somehow with our brains, we think we just got to push, push, push, go, go, go. And what we really need to do is we need to give our brain some space to just play and explore because that’s when we come up with amazing new ideas.

 

This is when we come back and we feel excited. So we need longer breaks than just the 30 seconds or the 15 minutes. We need days. We need sometimes weeks away from work. And that is a really good thing. But unfortunately, most us workers have about 10 days off, right? And what’s funny is studies have shown that 52% of Americans don’t use all their vacation days.

 

So if most of us workers have about 10 days off and 52% are not using their vacation days, it’s the equivalent of 212 million vacation days forfeited every year, 212 million vacation days. I’ll take your vacation days. I’d be very happy to take your vacation days. And the thing is, is we’re that is time that belongs to you. That is time. That is part of your compensation for your job,

 

for your work. Even if you’re working in a place that doesn’t give a lot of vacation, that’s, that’s part of your compensation, right? And when we go on vacation, we want to go and fully be present on vacation. But 40% of workers are still checking in with work while they’re away on their trips, or while they’re on their staycation.

 

So they’re not fully disengaged from work. 40% of people are not really unplugging and thoroughly enjoying their time away. And that means we’re not really using our vacations to our benefit. It’s to our benefit it’s to our jobs, benefits to our company’s benefit, your business, whatever it is, it benefits the world around you, right? When you take your vacation days,

 

and there are three ways. Let me just go into this because I know you need to hear this. You need to hear that it’s okay to go on vacation, because I know for a lot of you, you will come up with those excuses that there’s too much going on, or there’s not enough days, you know, or there’s not enough time or whatever it is.

 

Vacation is relaxing. I mean that doesn’t take scientific evidence to prove to us, right? But some people do wonder if vacations are relaxing. Have you ever heard people who come back from re from a vacation? And they say, I need a vacation from my vacation. Cause they over-scheduled all the things in their day, right? We’re going to talk about that in a minute.

 

But scientists have actually studied. This idea is, is a vacation relaxing, even one that is jam packed full. And what they did was they looked at the impact of couple of different kinds of vacation. They looked at resort, vacations, meditation retreats, and a couple others. And their data confirmed that when participants came back, they were more energetic.

 

They were less stressed than they were before vacation. And it actually made an impact on the molecular networks of their bodies. Like the, the cellular makeup of their body was rewired to not be as stressed and their immunities were boosted. So it’s really good for you. Right? Okay. So there’s our first reason why we need to go on vacation. Second reason breaks actually make you more productive.

 

You’ve heard me talk about this before, but there’s massive amounts of research that talk about how breaks make you more effective. The inability to detach from work. That’s what causes burnout, which of course, when we have burnout, it impacts our physical health, our well-being, our mental health, our productivity. And when we don’t disengage, we’re going to increase our stress.

 

We’re going to increase the cortisol levels and you don’t even have to go away for a long time, even a short weekend getaway. Like if you’re a person who’s like, you know what? I don’t have very many vacation days going away for a quick little weekend trip. Just getting out of town, getting out of your regular environment can get you to come back,

 

feeling refreshed and excited. And the third excuse you could use for why you need to go on a vacation is a change of pace. Actually encourages your creativity. It can actually stimulate your creativity by being away from work because your brain is still background tasking. It’s still thinking about things and you’re going to be able to problem solve and increase your optimism when you’re away.

 

Actually there’s some research by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson who found that optimistic emotions, like the kind that we feel when we’re relaxing and feeling playful on vacation, they make us more imaginative and more capable of thinking outside of the box. So I want to encourage you. First of all, before we take our little quick, mid episode break, I want you to think about how you’re going to go on vacation.

 

Any of those excuses you’ve used about why you can’t do it, why it’s not going to work for you. Think about those three things we just talked about, increasing your creativity, getting rid of a lot of that stress, adding some relaxation into your life and then boosting your productivity. All three of those are great excuses to use for yourself, for your boss,

 

whoever it is, you need to convince that you need to take some time away. All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a quick little episode break and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about some keys to successful breaks, how to take the stress out of planning and prepping for vacation. All right,

 

here we go. All right. I hope you’re enjoying this summer series. I’m excited about this refresh. And to be honest with you, this is not the only thing that I have been refreshing behind the scenes. I have been updating and revamping some of my most popular courses and I have two of them that are all been shined up brand new, ready to go for you.

 

My extraordinary life blueprint and multiplying your time. Mini course, both of those. I have been revamping. I’ve been reworking and I think you’re going to love them. Summer is a great time to dive into learning something new. And if you are ready to achieve something big that you’ve been dreaming about, check out the extraordinary life blueprint. If you are feeling like,

 

you know what? I don’t have time to do the things I want do multiplying your time course, that’s set for you. All right. So you can check both of those out at Tanya dalton.com/courses. As I said, both of those have gotten a refresh. I’m working on a couple other refreshes of some other courses I’ve had in the past. I’m excited about this because the truth is both of those programs have impacted and helped so many women.

 

I’m excited about you checking those out. So go to Tanya dalton.com/courses. All right, let’s get back to today’s show talking about how to fully enjoy your vacation and coming back refreshed. Because I think the thing is with extended breaks, whether we’re talking about a long holiday or vacation getaway, sometimes that can add more stress than not going on the vacation, or it feels like it does the thought of work piling up while you’re gone,

 

or the anxiety of dealing with family. That is very real. Let’s just acknowledge that, but there can be some stressors right with vacation. So that can keep us from wanting to take the breaks. And let’s face it thinking of taking a week off for the holidays with, let’s say your in-laws visiting or jam packing it full of holiday parties during the holiday season and gift exchanges or lots of events that doesn’t feel relaxing.

 

Does it, it can leave you feeling a little more exhausted actually, and emotionally drained than just staying at work. And you’re like, you know what? I’ll just stay at work rather than dealing with jumping from party to party, or, you know, you go home for vacation and you feel like you have to check in with every single family member or every single person that you went to high school with that can really be exhausting.

 

So I think the key is to make sure you set the tone for the time you’re taking off. That may be something you haven’t thought about before this idea of setting the intention, really deciding what you want to have happen on that time away, because that’s going to make a difference between you feeling like, you know what? I’ve got to go to this party and then I need to host a gathering and then I need to run to aunt Sally’s house.

 

And then I go to my best friend’s house, all those things that you’re piling in. If you’ve set the intention before that, you’re going to go, let’s say home to your home town. And you’re going to just rest. You’re going to take your kids around to see your old stomping grounds and, and show them where you went to school. And it’s really going to be a time for you to reconnect with your immediate family,

 

with your kids and your significant other. That’s going to really allow you to say no to a lot of those other things, right? When we say yes to all of those obligations, all of those expectations others have for us, it means we’re saying no to the things maybe that we want. And it’s okay to not say yes to every invitation. It’s okay not to say yes every time somebody has an expectation of you and wants you to come by,

 

right? I don’t want you to feel like you have to be a victim to everyone else’s priorities or even their traditions. If we’re talking about going on vacation during holiday seasons, right? So I want you to really think about what’s the intention behind this trip behind this vacation. What is it I want to feel at the end? And let’s use that as our north star to help guide us on what it is we want to do.

 

And honestly, that really ties in nicely with one of my travel tips that I want to share with you. I have five tips to help make vacation a little less stressful before we go on the vacation, everything else. And that’s really the first one is setting that intention. I like to think of it as making a vacation wishlist. And I want you to think about this.

 

Everyone has different ideas of what they want from a vacation. Some people picture themselves on a beach chair, lying in the sun with a frozen cocktail in one hand and a good book in the other while ocean waves lap at their feet. Ah, that sounds really nice. Now others might take that very same beach destination vacation, and they may fill it with storytelling and body surfing and hiking for miles to the beach and riding jet skis,

 

making sand castles, different people need different things in order to relax and enjoy their vacation. Even people in the same family have different ideas of the perfect vacation. So one of the things I really recommend is, you know, first of all, setting that intention, but creating a wishlist of what everyone needs to make sure you end up feeling happy and fulfilled by the end of the trip.

 

So the way that we have done this in the past with my own family is you list five things. Each person wants to do. You have kind of a little family meeting and each person brings five things that they want to do. And what we do is we promise to try to accomplish two, maybe three from each person’s list, right? If you get your five wishes,

 

I’m going to be, so I’m going to be shocked quite frankly, because I’m the person who likes to sit with the water lapping at my feet, reading a good book, but your wish goals could be things like, I want us to go on a family walk when we’re on the trip. Or I want us to try this new type of food,

 

this new cuisine, wherever you are, maybe it’s going to a particular museum or historical sites. What this does creating this wishlist and having each person bring five, right? It allows everyone to find some harmony. So everybody gets a little bit of what they want. The people who want to chill, they get what they want. The people who want adventure,

 

they get what they want. And here’s the thing. This is the biggest trick with all of this is you don’t have to do it all together. Sometimes it’s okay to split up. Maybe dad wants to ride a bike and, and go on a bike, riding adventure. And maybe one of the kids wants to do that. Great. They can go do that on their own.

 

Well, mom reads a book or while the kids build sand castles, right? So I want you to think about what everybody wants and you don’t have to fulfill every single person’s wish a hundred percent, right? Two or three from each person’s wishlist. That one little thing is a game changer. All right. So that’s my tip. Number one, make a vacation wishlist tip number two,

 

make up before you go list because let’s back it up before you even get on the vacation. Sometimes it’s super stressful getting ready for the vacation because there’s a thousand things to do. So I like to create three different before you go lists. So I do a list for what I need to do before a week before I need to go. So this might be things like making sure the Kindle arrangements are all set up for the dog and the cat or the pet sitter,

 

which is what we usually do. The pet sitter is all ready to go. Has the keys. Everything’s good to go stopping the mail, asking a neighbor to water the plants. What needs to happen a week before then I have a list of what needs to happen the day before. So this is like making sure the charging devices are all together, printing out boarding passes,

 

or putting them into your apple wallet. Let’s say maybe it’s going to the drug store for the last minute, little travel size of the things that you need. And then I have a, before you go list for the day of making sure I’ve set the alarm, turning off the lights, leaving particular lights on or setting timers, right? Not forgetting all the things you need to do,

 

not forgetting your carry on. So three little lists a week before, a day before, and the day of those little things will take the stress out of it. Once you have your list, you can use it again and again and again. And here’s a quick little extra bonus set for you. My favorite place to leave my list is in my travel size bin,

 

I have like a little bin where I just toss travel size things. Like when you go to the dentist and they give you the travel size, like little mini toothpaste and you know, the extra toothbrush. And when you go, you know, and you get, sometimes you get these boxes where they send like little travel size. I popped those. I have a little travel size bin that sits with my suitcases.

 

I keep my, before you go list with my little travel size bin. So that way everything is all together and super, super easy tip. Number three is really simple. I want you to think about your destination. Think about where you’re going. Take 10 minutes. Or this is what I do. I signed my kids. I signed my kids to look into where we’re going.

 

Tell me what amenities we have are their hairdryers there. Do we have to bring beach towels? Do we need to bring right? All those little things. This is a great task to hand over to somebody else to do. Look at the amenities because that saves you from overpacking. Let’s be honest beach towels. They take up a lot of room in a suitcase,

 

check out if there’s laundry facilities, because then you can pack fewer clothes. You want to know if they’re gonna provide shampoo and things like that. And if you are renting a house, think beyond the basics, is there dishwashing soap? Is there a trash bags, things like that? Are they going to have gains? Do you need to the games?

 

Is there a pharmacy nearby where you can get sunscreens, really understanding what your destination is going to look like? Makes it so much easier. So you don’t over-pack and speaking of packing, tip number four is to use a packing list. I am shocked by how many people don’t use a packing list and then they show up. They would need to go.

 

And they’re like, I don’t know why I don’t have my phone charger or I can’t believe I forgot to bring sunscreen, right? Having a packing list. It makes a huge difference. And the extra bonus with this is it makes our kids so much more independent. I have a packing list and actually I have one that I can send out to you.

 

I will send it out in my email from this week. I have a basic packing list, a beach packing list, a camping packing list. I think I have one other one. I will send those out to you for those of you who are on my email list. You know, I send an email out on Tuesdays. I will send that out to you today with this episode.

 

If you’re not on my email list, go ahead and sign up. Tanya dalton.com/email, because I’ll go ahead and send it again for next week because those have been amazing because honestly I print them out and of course, you know me, I don’t do anything where it’s not really pretty. It’s a nice looking packing list. Then I can give it to my kids.

 

And it’s, I can say like, okay, here’s your packing list. It has the number of each thing they need. You need three pairs of socks. You need, you know, five pairs of underwear. You need whatever. And then I give it to them. They set it out in their room and then they put everything in their piles.

 

I come in and I check and we are good to go. And the thing is, I’ve got one kid who likes to pack a week ahead. I’ve got one who likes to pack the day before this allows them to work at their own pace. I tell my kids, or this is what I did when they were little. Now they’re a little bit older,

 

so much more self-sufficient, but I would tell them, okay, I am doing packing. I’m checking in on your packing on the day before at four o’clock the day before, that’s what I’m checking on your packing. Here’s your list. You are good to go. I don’t need to do all of this. I don’t need to pack their suitcases. I need them to know how to pack their own suitcases.

 

Right? I don’t want to micromanage them. So this is something that we started off when they were really little, when they were teeny tiny, I would say, okay, how many shirts do you think you need? And they would figure it out and they would write it on the packing list. And then they would go off and do it. Right?

 

My kids also went, even when they were young, they packed their own carry on bags. So having a packing list really helps you. First of all, not micromanage, not feel like you have to do everything. And it also helps with not forgetting the unforgivables on those packing lists. That I’ll email you. There are things that you maybe forget about,

 

you know, like your medicines and, and things like contact solution and things like that. So having that really helps you feel a little more in charge. And speaking of making sure that everyone is involved, tip number five is get everyone involved. Truly. Nobody told you you had to be the cruise director. I think sometimes the stress of making everyone else happy means you aren’t happy.

 

You feel like you have to be the cruise director. You got to make sure everything gets done. You gotta make sure all the packing gets done. Let’s make sure we’re sharing the load with everyone. It’s your vacation too. You don’t have to do everything. And that packing list that I just talked about here a second ago, that’s a perfect example.

 

You don’t need to pack your kids’ suitcases, let them come up with, they need to pack, and then you can help them put it into the suitcase if you need to. Right? But even when we go on vacation, like we do a family vacation with my best friend’s family. Every other year, we go to the beach, we do a chore chart where the kids have different days where they are cleaning or setting up a food,

 

or they’re doing different things. Because even though we’ve rented like a fabulous beach house, I still got to get all the food on the table, right? People like to eat three meals a day. It’s funny how kids want that, but they can be a part of making that happen. So we make it really easy by having a little chore chart that we post.

 

And everybody knows what they’re in charge of some days they’re in charge of being assistance, being the sous chefs for the cooking. Some days they’re in charge of the cleaning. So the other thing that I do is I make the meals really simple and easy. When we go and we do our beach vacation, I write them out. I plan them ahead of time.

 

We do a lot of sandwiches for lunch or things that we can reheat things that other people can make. That don’t require me to be in the kitchen. In fact, that’s one of the things that a lot of times, if we’re doing sandwiches, that’s one of the kids’ chores is getting the sandwich stuff out, getting out the snack things. So just really thinking those things ahead and really taking turns,

 

making sure that you’re not doing all the work. All right. So those are my five really quick tips that I think make a huge difference. Making that vacation wishlist game-changer making the, before you go lists. Oh my gosh. That totally revolutionized how I felt before I went on vacations. Thinking about your final destination and even farming that out and having your kids doing that research right?

 

Using the packing list. And I am so happy to send you those packing lists. I’ll be sending those out this week and next week. So if you’re not on my email list, go to Tanya dalton.com/email. I’ll make sure you get those. And then tip number five was getting everyone involved. I know we covered a lot here, but what I’m hoping is that you are now in the mindset of,

 

you know what I do need to go on vacation. I do need a break. I do need time away and it doesn’t need to be stressful. I want you to go on vacation and come back, feeling refreshed and recharged and ready to go. That’s what I want for you. And that’s really the purpose behind the summer series. If you go back and you listen to episode 1 29,

 

that I based it off of, it’s slightly different than this one, but there’s a lot of great things there in those old episodes. So while you’re taking your vacation this summer, maybe check out some of the old, the old podcast episodes. This one was from season 10, which was all about bending. So anytime that you want to listen to old podcasts episodes of mine,

 

they’re right there in your podcast player, or you can go to Tanya dalton.com/podcast. Next week, we’ll have another summer series and other refresh of a popular episode. I’m excited to bring that to you next, not next week, the week after, cause we’re still on our every other week schedule. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying a restful and enjoyable summer.

 

I know I am because spending time with my kids taking time away, getting away and unplugging fully from work. That is the Intentional Advantage. Thanks so much for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go, do you like prizes? When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional Advantage podcast, you’ll be entered to win my life changing course,

 

multiplying your time. Simply leave the review and then send me an email@helloatTanyadalton.com or the screenshot. I choose one winner at the end of every month. So go ahead. Do it right now. Just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not going to lie by stars is my favorite,

 

but I’d love to hear what you think of the show. And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course, I have to tell you the reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast. And me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it.

 

So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now. So go ahead and do it, send that screenshot my way, because I want to give you a free course and thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday and I’ll plan to see you then.

 

 

**This transcript was created using AI, so excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Tanya is a woman with a purpose: she is helping women find balance, redefining productivity and helping with time management. She is considered one of the best female keynote speakers – her talks are motivational, inspirational and actionable.