Holidays!

Happy New Year for all the readers!

Hope you have had a great time celebrating the new start and possible some time off to relax.

People in different countries have very different holiday cultures. In some countries, employees take few weeks off annually. Some have over six weeks of holiday time. How this is divided throughout the year is also very different, both cultural and also individual choice.

I come from Finland, where almost everyone is on long (approximately 4 weeks) holidays on July. The country pretty much stops on that time, everyone goes on their summer cottages and travel around the country. When I was in academia, I had 5 weeks holiday, but also leave loading (amount is half the salary during the holiday period) and at university you were able to change the money to twice amount of extra leave. Which meant that on each year, I had 10 weeks paid leave.

Here in Australia, people have 4 weeks holiday. Most people have a week here, another there. Some have pretty much no holidays and I know people who have over 12 weeks of holidays on their sleeve, accrued from previous years.

When I was younger, I thought people need long holidays to recover from the year’s work. I have always had at least 2-3 weeks around Christmas.

However, during last few years, my thoughts have shifted.

I have realized that not everyone needs holidays, at least not a long ones. It is more important what you do when you are NOT at holidays. Is your everyday life (too) demanding and ripping every last shred of energy from you? Are you very tired on weekends and after work? Are you knackered when the holidays start and does it take first week to just recover?

It does not have to be that way.

I have realized that I need to change my work the way that it does not rob my energy. I need to design my life in a way that it is in balance. For some, it means working closer to home, working reduced hours or not giving their every bit of energy to the employer.

For me – now - it meant changing jobs.

I have recently started in a new job and I absolutely love it. I only work 4 days a week and I have very different working environment to what I had before. I feel happy and I am looking forward going to work every single day. I have a position that aligns more with what I really, really want to do and I have freedom and support to be a productive member of workplace community. I feel energetic and cannot wait to get back to work on Monday mornings.

Now I understand people who do not need long holidays. I finally also understand that when the everyday life is not arduous, there is a lot of happiness, joy and energy to gain. We spend so much of our life at work that we should make it to match our values. When we feel happy at work, it does not feel like work, it feels like life. And that’s what it is.

You might want to stop for a minute and evaluate what your situation is today.

If you are happy, keep on it.

If you are tired, unhappy or burdened, do something.

What to do to change?

1. Evaluate what you want from life. Do you want wealth, health or status? Write down five main things you want from life.
2. Evaluate what you get now. Do you have money but not happiness? Do you have free time, but not enough money? Whatever you get now, write down five of those.
3. Compare your lists. If there are three or more same on both lists, you might need to just tweak something, but if there are no matches, you need to do major changes.
4. Take action. You might want to reduce your hours, study some more or change jobs. Do not be afraid of change. When you know what you want, do it. Do not spend any more time in unhappy situation or workplace, it is not worth it. We have only limited time on this earth and we do not know when it ends. Do not wait for the retirement or ‘better situation’, take control of your life and act now.