Take a Break – 7 Reasons you NEED to do this

We recently took a 5 day break to go to Queensland with our kidlets. It was to celebrate our youngest’s 10th birthday.

 

In our family, we don’t give the kids a present when they hit double digits. We let them choose an experience instead.

 

When our twins turned 10, their favourite TV show at that time was Bondi Rescue. They wanted to spend their birthday (January 26, Australia Day) on Bondi Beach with the lifeguards.

So we flew to Sydney and did just that, and spent another 3 days looking around Sydney. They loved it and they still talk about it.

Our youngest is a water baby and she wanted to spend her 10th birthday at Wet ‘n’ Wild water park on the Gold Coast.

We took 5 days off from our business and flew to the Gold Coast. We did 3 theme parks, spent lots of time at the pool and spent M’s birthday at Wet ‘n’ Wild.

She had the best day and we all had a great time!

 

Here are 7 benefits that Leigh & I received from taking a break from our business, and we urge you to take one too.

 

It was something to look forward to.

 

We can put up with a lot as humans when we know it is only for a period of time. When you have something booked that you really want to do, you can push through to that deadline.

You can go the distance. You understand why you are busting a gut at your business, because this is the reward.

And it is not only for you, it is for your family too.

 

It tests your training.

 

Even when we hand things off to our team, if there are things missed sometimes, we are there to mop up those gaps.

When we take ourselves out of the store, we can actually see how well we have trained people. There will be things missed, but you need to do this to 100% fool proof your training and your delegation.

To make sure it isn’t important things that are missed, go over contingencies with your team before you leave. Talk about the important things and make sure they are all over them.

The benefits in the long run of seeing the holes means that you can plug them.  When you take your next break, there won’t be any issues.

 

It confirms to your staff that they are capable to run things without you.

 

When we took our 5 week break for our honeymoon, (read about how we set that up here), the managers were nervous that they wouldn’t be able to handle things while we were gone.

But they did and when we got back, they were pleasantly surprised with themselves that they had done so. Their confidence soared, and they were willing to cover again when we wanted to take another break.

If you have appointed people to do the job, but you then micro manage them, you take away their confidence in being able to handle the job.

If you aren’t there to do that, then they have to step up. And they can and will. Give them the space to do that.

 

It widens your world.

 

Sometimes when we work a lot, our world view becomes very narrow. It can restrict down to work and home. Maybe school for drop off/pick up, kids activities and supermarket.

Yet there are so many amazing places and people out there for us to explore, and we need to take a break to go do that.

Stepping out of your every day makes you realize that you are missing out on a lot by being so ‘small’.

You need the adventure, the fun, and the relaxation to live a full life.

 

It reduces your stress.

 

We can always tell when we need a break. We are generally pretty chill about business and life, but when we are tired, our fuse gets shorter.

We start running close to the limit of our capacity. Small things that wouldn’t bother us otherwise, start to annoy and upset us.

We then see ourselves react badly, both at home and at work, and know we can’t keep doing this long term.

A break reduces our stress levels and lengthens that fuse again. Our ability to cope is back and life gets back to being pretty chill.

 

It allows connection time.

 

Even when we focus on having ‘real’ time with our family, life can still get busy and can get in the way of spending that quality time.

A break takes those pressures out and lets you just hang out together.

There are still pressures while away.  Like getting kidlets on iPads to hurry up to catch the shuttle to the theme parks being one!

But they are different pressures. And the kind we can handle when there is a theme park on the other end! 🙂

 

It creates memories.

 

Our twins still talk about their 10th birthday. Yet they have trouble remembering what we gave them for their 11th and 12th birthdays.

We did a couple of bucket list things for Leigh & I this trip too.  Swimming with RAAF the dolphin and taking a helicopter flight. We will ALL remember those things for life.

This, in our humble opinion, is living. This is what life is all about. This is why we have a business, so we can then do all these amazing things.

Our goal is to have a long list of extraordinary things that we have done in life when our time comes.

Whoever reads our eulogies will need a throat soother to help their sore throat from reading out everything that we have done! 🙂

 

It’s time for you to take a break Parent Bosses.

 

If you need help setting up your business, so that you can also take a break, book a call with us for a chat.

There is no pressure, and no obligation.

Just some Parent Bosses on the other end of the call that totally get what you are dealing with and want you to take a break too.

Click here to book a time.