Vacation Reflection
Reflection is a crucial mental activity for both professional and personal life, especially when it comes to vacations. By analyzing and understanding our past experiences, we can learn, avoid repeating mistakes, and design more successful future vacations.
Author and educator Terry Borton proposed a simple reflective model to help us reflect on and learn from our experiences. To reflect on your past vacations, consider these three questions:
1. What?
- What went well? What went wrong?
- What experiences made you happy or relaxed? What increased your stress?
- What people or things were beneficial?
2. So What?
- What was the outcome of your vacation (positive, negative, neutral)?
- How did you feel on vacation and upon returning to work?
- Was the vacation a match for your personality and values? What did you learn?
3. What Now?
- What will you do similarly or differently for future vacations?
- How will you design your future vacations based on your past experiences?
By reflecting on each vacation, you can better design future ones. I personally use this model after every vacation, and it has significantly improved my vacation planning.
Social Comparison
Social comparison is when we compare ourselves with others to understand ourselves better and assess our self-worth. This phenomenon can have significant impacts on our behavior and financial decisions.
A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that when one household wins the lottery, their neighbors are more likely to borrow more money and report bankruptcies, driven by the desire to "keep up with the Joneses."
This comparison also extends to vacations. Photos and videos of luxurious vacations on social networks can lead to envy and influence others to take similar trips. Research shows that social comparison on social networks increases the likelihood of choosing a particular destination, especially among Millennials.
While social comparison is a natural human tendency, it’s essential to evaluate why you choose certain vacations. Ask yourself:
- Does this vacation align with my personality and values?
- Would I take this vacation if no one knew about it?
- What do I genuinely want to do on vacation?
Design your vacations authentically, focusing on what truly benefits you rather than trying to impress others.
Experiential CV
We all collect something, whether physical items or experiences. Marketing researcher Anat Keinan introduced the concept of an experiential curriculum vitae (CV), where we derive similar psychological benefits from collecting experiences as we do from collecting physical items.
Experiences generally include novel, rare, unexpected, or foreign events. However, it’s important not to view vacations solely as opportunities to build our experiential CV. True rest involves achieving nothing and allowing ourselves to recharge, which enhances productivity and accomplishment in other areas of life.
When designing your vacation, find pleasant experiences that allow you to relax and de-stress. If you choose experiences to benefit your experiential CV, ensure they also enable you to return to work rested.
Vacation Design
A beneficial vacation starts with proper design. If you vacation in a stressful location or engage in activities that don’t align with your personality and values, you may return more stressed than before. Experienced vacationers are better at designing vacations that suit them, so the more vacations you take, the better you’ll become at planning them.
I’ve identified three pillars of vacation design:
- Analyze your vacation needs through understanding your personality and values.
- Reflect on past vacations to determine what worked and what didn’t.
- Avoid social comparison and inauthentic experiential CV growth.
Using these pillars, you can design vacations that are authentic, appropriate, and beneficial. To help with this process, I’ve created a vacation design worksheet where you can brainstorm and list potential types of vacations suited to your needs. This list will serve as a valuable resource for planning future vacations.
By reflecting on your past vacations and considering your true needs and values, you can create enriching and restorative vacation experiences that truly benefit your well-being. Happy vacation planning!
For more insights and detailed strategies on designing the perfect vacation, check out my book. If you have any questions or tips to share, feel free to leave a comment below!