Ever thought about that customary New Year vacation you’ve always had? Probably the one to make family feel happy about, as a ritual? Family and friends, Late night parties, getting up tired and late on day one of the new year, many with a ‘spirited’ hangover, and beginning office with regret and remorse. How does it sound to consider building a vacation calendar this time? Here are 10 ways you can make your vacation memorable ;

• Switch off all communication devices and commit to personal time, fully. Irrespective of the place, venue or celebration theme, mails, phones and text messages shall keep you in the world you always wanted to leave behind for couple of days.
• Commit fully to family, friends; Play with kids, do silly things as you did when you were a child, shop for things you rarely or never would, for fun (Memorabilia, souvenirs, collectibles), crack jokes, unshackle yourself from timelines and schedules. Reclaim your original self, free from worldly encumbrances. You haven’t taken this one for virtual social media connections.
• Carry a list of those you missed connecting in routine. Relatives, old friends, and those you would love bridging with. Apologize for the gap and express that you have them in your ‘special list’. Refresh relationships.
• Indulge in moderation; it is great to be freaking out while on a break, it may be a prudent to savor the holiday more holistically than eating too much, pub-crawling or killing sleep/rest.
• Build ‘Experiences’; Do a few things you never did. A hiking/trekking, scuba, Para-sail, fishing, exploring local cuisine or market, or, a bout of wine tasting are fewer experiences you may like to carry back for a lifetime.
• Spending time with spouse; the closest for nearly everyone are their spouses, the relationship that suffers the most because it gets taken for granted. Communicate with warmth, take a long walk, talk about future and express how the relationship matters to you. This helps healing many scars in the relationship and restores it for long.
• Allocate time for ‘Yourself’; allow yourself a quite morning walk, meditate, sit in solitude, see yourself transiting across times mindfully. Do a recap on all the goals you set for yourself and how are you progressing. Think about tweaking, redefining or re-setting the goals as you may wish. Mull over what needs to be changed if you were to reach them. These may not be essentially short term goals like ‘What next Monday after vacation’, or a ‘sales or financial target’, but questions on direction, purpose, sustainability, longevity and relevance of life goals.
• A writing pad and a pen may be your best friends on vacation. Write down every morning and evening, your experiences, learning, feelings and all, that made it happen. Think and write about the areas you may need support and resources to sustain it long after the vacation is over.

• Commit to a more human change; towards your key goals, decide on, what you would like to ‘realistically’ commit to. Keep changes to a threshold level even if they are baby steps towards your long term goals. For instance ‘Health consciousness’  could be a long term goal while ‘5% weight loss every quarter’ could be a medium term goal, while ‘eating right’/ ‘walking daily’ or ‘de-stressing’, could be a subconsciously pursued daily goal. Resolve to the goal and maintain tenacity while appreciating that the effort is human, and is bound to face distractions initially.
• Commit to reward yourself; pamper and lure yourself with a reward, if you made your goals happen. After all, attaining those milestones is no less than ‘great performance’ and deserves an incentive the way it happened at office. The difference is, you would thank your ‘being’ and ‘connect’ more with yourself and the spirit.

In this journey called life, there is a definitive need to re-booting oneself in all aspects, be it emotionally, physical, spiritual, family and relationships. So this time while you may be planning your vacation, ensure you make it a memorable one, the one that helps you come back and take it on with positivity and purpose. 

Author is a Life and health coach. Visit www.alokpurohit.com for more such blogs and to explore how coaching can help.