Where we go on holiday, what the accommodation is like and who we meet all will contribute to making our holiday either a brilliant occasion to remember or just a ho-hum get away. However something else that is arguably equally as important for ensuring that we enjoy ourselves abroad is making sure that we are able to let ourselves enjoy our time off and making sure that we can embrace the location we’re visiting. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your holiday psychologically.
Remember:
It’s All Up to You
Something odd that you’ll find when you look at many people on holiday is that they sometimes seem to feel obligated to do certain things. You get the people who really just want to lie around the pool but who say that they have to go out and see some culture otherwise they’ve wasted the experience, and likewise you get the people who just want to look around but say that they ‘better spend some time by the pool’. Remember that this is your holiday, and that you are free to spend the time however you like – no one is going to judge you and you don’t have to anything to make anyone else happy. If you want to spend the ENTIRE of your holiday in the hot tub? Go for it. You’ll rarely get another chance after all.
Be in the Moment
The same goes for pictures people seem to spend a lot of time on holiday worrying that other people are going to judge them if they don’t come back with lots of stunning pictures to show them and they sometimes get so preoccupied with showing off their holiday on Facebook that they forget to enjoy it. Are you guilty of enjoying your holiday through a camera’s viewfinder? Then maybe it’s time to switch off and just enjoy yourself.
Another way that people forget to be in the moment is by worrying unduly about going home or even more bizarrely about the ‘next holiday’. How many times have you been on holiday only to enter into a discussion about where you’re going to go next? Give your holiday the respect of focussing on this one while you’re on it and just enjoying yourself.
Turn Off
Of course the biggest thing that stands in the way for most people when they come to enjoying their holiday is their work and other commitments. The problem here is that they spend the whole time worrying about the work they’ve left behind or their other commitments as a parent or as a partner and so don’t enjoy themselves as much. When you’re away from everything there’s nothing you can do to affect these matters so just switch off. Visualize yourself taking your worries and locking them away in a little box. Open this box only when you get home.
If you are constantly receiving calls from work then this is going to make leaving work at home more difficult. Of course the solution is just to turn off your phone – but that can be a problem if you have someone at home who needs to get in touch in case of an emergency (such as the dog kennel). The solution then is to have a secondary phone and to give that number out only to family. Bring that with you and turn off your work phone so that you can turn off yourself too.
Eric Walker is a travel buff and an avid blogger, he is an event planner for Well Wicked Experience Days.In this article he writes about ways to enjoy a holiday to its fullest.
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