Juggling Work, Life, and Holidays with Sabrina Morris

As we near the year's end, we shift from looking back at the year to thinking ahead to 2024. We take a moment to figure out what challenges we've faced and spot areas where our life might be a bit off-kilter. This sets the scene for considering what we want to shake up in the coming year. What tweaks can we make for a more balanced and enjoyable life in 2024? In this episode, I have Sabrina Morris, a lifestyle Promoter and Entrepreneur. Sabrina shares about the importance of work-life balance, employee wellness programs, and workplace vacation policies. Moreover, Sabrina highlights how being part of a supportive mastermind group can bring positive changes mentally, and spiritually. Tune in as we unravel the keys to a fulfilling life. --- Listen to the podcast here: Juggling Work, Life, and Holidays with Sabrina Morris Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I want to start talking to you about something a little bit more light, a little bit more fun, and that is going on vacation. We all need rest, we all need time away, and sometimes we all oftentimes need a change of scenery, a different point of view, a different perspective. To embellish on this topic, I’d like to introduce you to my guest today, Sabrina Morris, or Sabrina the Lifestyle Promoter. --- Hi, Stephen, and thank you so much for having me on today. I’m looking forward to working with your audience, having conversation. Oh, for sure. So, I had read somewhere and I don’t remember the exact numbers, the startling facts around how much PTO, vacation time, etc., goes unused in this country right now. We’re in a situation where a lot of people just don’t feel like they can take their time off and they don’t feel like they can essentially take vacation. What do you think people need to do to feel more comfortable and taking what they should see is like just a normal part of their life and something that any person that works reasonably hard deserves to do? Love yourself. And I’ll elaborate. I am known as enterprise architect, and as an enterprise architect, you go in and solve basically executive’s problems. I have an engineering background, a business background, and when you go in as a niche consultant and solve those problems and you’re wanting to take a vacation so that you can reboot, re-energize, and renew your mind, there’s an assumption that, all of a sudden, you’re not, and I’m going to put quotes, “dedicated.” So what I did is allowed that Sabrina’s not dedicated because she wants to take a break, influence a decision to use the time off or to take the time off. Now, even as a niche consultant, we have a little bit more flexibility because we can take time between projects. I did not. I caution each and every one of you not to make that. Take care of you. Love on yourself. Do what you enjoy doing. I really liked the way the Europeans do it. They work so that they can enjoy life. A lot of times, Americans and American companies live to work. The employees live to go work. Get up, you get ready, grind it out, for those of us who are still commuting, you’re commuting, you got the people who cut you off, you got to resist the road rage, then you get to work, deal with the fact that they don’t have enough staff, deal with the fact that they don’t love on their employees or appreciate what you do, you deal with all of this, and then you have to go back in the grind, drive back home, resist the road rage, and if you can rest, then it starts all over again. So you have to make sure that you love on yourself and your family. Especially for those of you who are married or have a significant other, love language is quality time.Share on X f you’re not spending that quality time, I’m sure they have reminded you of that. It’ll come out one way or the other, right? Yes, it will. So love yourself. Focus on taking a healthier approach to your work lifestyle. Yes, I know everybody’s got to go to work, pay your bills, we have obligations, but you also have an obligation to you and your loved ones. So, what is the potential downside of loving on yourself? One of the things many people are probably fearing is that, okay, if I decide to work a few less hours, if I decide to not be the person that is willing to take on each additional task, each additional project, if I decide that, okay, I’m worth having a vacation, that something’s going to come down on them, whether it be their work be less quality or whether it be some punishment from the company, a lost promotion, a lost opportunity. Is that an accurate assessment of it or is that something that’s a little bit overblown? So I think you hit the nail on the head. They do process those things like, “Oh, I want the next promotion.” I had to learn the hard way that there are companies out there that actually appreciate their employees. Maybe you want to take an assessment and say does this company really appreciate me and the quality that I bring to the position? If they do, they will be insisting that you take leave, for many reasons. Yeah. Reenergize. And when you solve problems, you have a different perspective. I’ve also done a training on momentum and motivation, and in that class, we talked about how to reboot on your vacation, because some of us need a vacation from our vacation. So there are strategies that you can leverage to do that as well. I say this to say you still need to keep your priorities in life. The company, being that I have worked with lots of C-suite executives, they’re going to keep their priorities. They are going to keep, I’m going to say that over and over and over, they are going to keep their priorities and they’re going to be important to them and they are going to do whatever it takes to get their objectives accomplished. So we, as employees or team members, need to do the same for ourselves. If you go to work thinking you’re not replaceable, that’s the biggest mistake you can make right now.Share on X I have seen so many cases where employees burn out and they had to quit or they had to leave. I had one lady tell me that one of her team members even committed suicide. It’s not worth it. Yeah, it is not worth it. You have to take care of yourself because if you don’t take care of yourself, now what is your family going to do? Yeah. Yeah, there are so many reasons. So it’s interesting that you bring up needing a vacation from your vacation because I’ve heard so many people tell stories of taking a vacation and coming back not refreshed for one reason or another. Maybe they’ve decided to overplan and be perfectionist about every little thing, or maybe they’re not really thinking about it in the right mindset, they’re trying to make it another version of accomplishing something, “I need to see this, this, this, this, this, and this,” is there a certain mindset we need to come into with our vacations to make sure that anytime we take a vacation, when we come back, we actually are rejuvenated, we actually are refreshed and kind of ready to take on coming back in the way a vacation is meant to work? That’s a good point, because for a long time, I could never understand why anyone would want to plan every single thing. Like there’s no room to take a break, unless they plan it in the schedule. And then I started understanding that has to do a lot with the personality type. In that scenario, I would say it’s okay to delegate. I know that sounds scary to some people, they’re like, “Oh my God. That’s part of my fun,” because I’ve asked that same question and many individuals say their vacation starts when they start the planning process. Now, when I say, “Okay, guys, you can delegate a considerable portion of that, there are communities out there that will literally plan a great deal of your stay and then you’ll have your free day whereby, let’s say you pick up maybe two things or you don’t be so intense on the, “What is this? Four o’clock? Gotta get up. At six o’clock, we’re gonna do all these other things, and then at noon, we have to eat on noon. If we don’t eat by noon, we’re off schedule.” If you see yourself in that role, I want to challenge you to have a free day whereby you don’t know what’s going to happen. And then, if you say, “Okay, that’s way too much, I gotta know something about the day,” I’m like, okay, I’ll meet you halfway if you meet me halfway. I want you to take the last day of your escape, so let’s say you’re going somewhere for five days, on the very, very first day, because I know you’re a planner, I’m talking to the planners out there, I’ll get to everyone else soon, but for the planners out there, I want you to, day one, scope out a very quiet, secluded place on where you’re staying. You’re going to keep that place in your mind because, remember, you’re going to have one day you don’t know what’s going to happen. However, I’m going to give you a little context so you’ll have some idea. So on the last day, I want you to go to that spot. This is the plan. Okay, so now you’re getting the plans, you can’t say you didn’t have plans, it’s going to be nice. I want you to do nothing that whole day. Sit there and relax. Watch the birds. If you found a place playing in the pool and that’s relaxing for you, I want you to sit there and watch everyone play in the pool. Or journal. Think about a problem that you need to overcome or something you need to work on when you get back and start journaling. Does not have to have an order to it. Just want you to start running through ideas. Literally write those down and just take that last day and do nothing, meaning you are doing something because you planned to do nothing, okay? Plan on something. When you’re hungry, how about that? And then you’re going to have refreshments when it comes by, because some places are all included, somebody comes by and says,...