The Mantra You Need for Pre-Vacation Anxiety

Even if you don’t have clinical anxiety, chances are that you’ve experienced pre-vacation anxiety (or what I’ll refer to as PVA for brevity). People can feel PVA in a few different ways, but for this post, I’m referring to the feelings I get at my job the week leading up to a vacation.

If you have a full-time job, or even a part-time job, and you are even remotely a good employee, you’ve probably felt PVA before going on vacation. This might not be a universal ailment, but in America, it is real (at least for me).

Americans especially work way too much. Yes, we get vacation days, but there is an underlying culture at many companies that can cause people to feel uncomfortable taking those days off.

Now, not every company is this way. I’ve been lucky enough to work places where the boss encourages employees to take time off to recharge. But even in those environments, PVA still shows up.

My most recent bout of PVA was before I left work to go on long-term leave and travel the world with Remote Year. As you might imagine, my PVA this time was way worse than it is before a normal vacation. My normal PVA usually includes an insanely long to-do list of everything I need to finish before I leave and everything I need to hand-off to someone else before I leave. Being my anxious self, I refuse to neglect any detail, which, of course, makes me more anxious.

This time, I had my long to-do lists, but the anxious feeling of tending to every detail was amplified by the fact that I was disappearing from my job for five months to travel, unpaid, and write a blog. I had a week to transition all my tasks and knowledge and other rolling pieces to my replacement, and I was leaving a project I had been with since its inception. Oh, and a lot of people were going to be following me over the next few months, watching my every move.

Along with the nerves that come with traveling, the terror of embarking on a trip on my own, and the sadness of leaving my loved ones behind, there was also the nagging PVA every day as I went into the office and attempted to complete everything in an 8-hour workday.

Luckily, I made it through. I arrived safely to my first stop: Valencia, Spain. But I can’t be the only person who feels stressed and overwhelmed right before a vacation. Really, I’m not even that bad. I can usually let my responsibilities go once I get to the airport, but for some, it can take days to unwind and get in the vacation mindset—ultimately cutting your vacation short.

So for those out there who suffer from PVA, I have a mantra for you. Print this out and put it on your desktop. Read it out loud or to yourself in the week (or weeks) leading up to a vacation. I hope it helps you to let go, even just a little, because no one deserves anxiety. Especially not before an adventure!

You work hard every day. You are a skilled worker, a valued employee, and an all-around badass. Everyone here needs you, whether they know it or not. But, they will also survive without you. Even if it takes some time and it’s not perfect, they will figure it out. So breath. Yes, you are amazing, but you can’t stay amazing without taking time to ‘do you’. Spend today getting what you can done, taking care of yourself along the way, and then leave work. Leave the office, leave the laptop, leave the emails—leave it all! Go out and embrace the world. Get excited. Have fun. Relax. Know that everything is as it should be. In the end, everything will be ok.