Can You Take a Vacation From Thinking About Books?

Some thoughts on taking time off.

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Before I get to today’s post, if you or anyone you know would like to join me this Sunday with Jane Friedman, I am giving a free presentation on The 7 Steps to Building a Book Coaching Business at 12 PST/ 3 EST. It’s free and you can sign up HERE.

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Photo by Aryan Dhiman on Unsplash

I just came back from a vacation — a real one. It wasn’t a fast-paced tour, a visit to see family, or an adventure with friends. The occasion was my 35th wedding anniversary and the vision Rob and I had was deep rest and purposeful connection. 

To accomplish this, we signed up for a week-long retreat that included morning yoga with our favorite instructor from our home studio; evening ocean swims; fresh, local food; and daily group sessions with psychologist Dr. Diana Hill, whose specialty is “wise effort,” which is about how you spend your energy and live your values. 

We went back to Costa Rica, where we had recently traveled for a friend’s birthday celebration – and I understand just exactly how privileged this sounds. I have immense gratitude for being able to enjoy this kind of luxury.

What Do You Need From The Group?

Diana is a gifted workshop leader and I learned so much by watching her work. At the first gathering, she asked everyone to write on a card what we wanted from ourselves for the week and what we wanted from the group.

I had decided to stay off the internet for the entire week, with the one exception of checking for the birth of my niece – my only sister’s first grandchild. I wanted true rest and relaxation, and the chance to be present with Rob and the others in our group. That side of the card was easy.

The side of the card where we had to ask what we wanted from the group took me a little longer to pin down, but what came to me was this: I want to be in a space where I am not asked to lead, to solve any problems, to be the one with the answers, or to feel obligated to help in any way.

I selected this as my request because my tendency is to always step to the front. I lead a community of certified book coaches at Author Accelerator, and teach our students, and coach my writers, and interview people for a podcast, and write this newsletter. I wanted a break. I wanted to be the person who sits in the back and says nothing. I was so burned out on always carrying so much responsibility.

A Vacation From Books

I didn’t write this part down, specifically, but I also wanted to figure out how to take a vacation from books. It’s a tricky thing!

I suppose I could have just decided not to read anything at all, but that seemed unreasonable – a little bit like not breathing. I love to read a thick book on vacation and to later savor the memory of having read that book in that place.

I didn’t want to read one of the three books I was working on that had to do with work (a book I needed to review for a podcast, and two books I needed to read for an event.) 

I didn’t want to read anything that would make me think of a client’s project, in terms of topic.

I didn’t want to read anything that would make think about my business – so nothing about entrepreneurs, coaching, money, or mindset. 

I didn’t want anything too dense.

I didn’t want to read a memoir since I am building a course on writing memoir.

I wanted a great escape of a novel.

Note that a point I am always making is that a writer has to understand why their ideal reader is coming to their book. What experience is that reader seeking and is the writer giving it to them? Readers select books for very specific reasons. Helping our writers define this is a great service.

I landed on Dear Edward by Anne Napolitano, a mega-hit from a few years back about the sole survivor of a plane crash. 

This choice violated one of my own rules, in that it was connected very closely to a client’s project (a memoir about her brother’s death in a jumbo jet crash) and had been a comp title for that work – but I told myself it was okay, since that the project was out of my hands and well on its way to press; there was nothing I could add to it.

This choice also violated another reading rule, which is to never read anything that will lead to nightmares. Reading about a plane crash while flying on a plane…? I’m not sure how I didn’t think that through…

How Did My Escape Go?

In terms of the internet restriction, my retreat went very well. The baby arrived on the first day we were in Costa Rica, so I finished with the celebratory calling, the texting, and the ordering of flowers, and turned everything off. I snuck a couple of glances at texts and emails early in the week, but as the retreat went on, did not feel at all tempted to look at any of it.

The days were filled with long, lazy conversations, long, lazy swims, and long, lazy naps. It was as dreamy as it sounds.

In terms of the book, I made an excellent choice. Despite the topic, Dear Edward is a story that is brimming with hope. It is a story that showcases the painful beauty of being alive. I loved it and I was fully immersed in the story. I barely thought about the masterful handling of two timelines. I did notice it. How could I not? And I did underline some particularly lovely sentences and paragraphs, which I may write about someday; one of them struck me as a sentence that AI could never write, and that is an idea I would love to explore.

I’m a person who is trained to analyze story – to think about how writers create the experience they want their readers to have. As much as we try, it’s impossible to step out of our own skin and I felt that I did a pretty good job of shutting down that part of my brain and just enjoying a good story well told.

So in terms of rest and relaxation, and connection with my husband, my vacation was a soulful success.

Where It All Fell Apart

On the last day of the retreat, Diana came up to me at breakfast and asked if I would do a live recording of a podcast with her later in the day. I would not be on her show as an expert, the way I normally am, but as a student of her wise effort method. She thought it would be fun to do a live show from the retreat.

I knew it would be uncomfortable to do a live therapy session in front of a live audience, even if was an audience of people I had by then befriended, but I am always game to help a fellow entrepreneur. I said yes.

During the recording, we were working with the concept of wise effort and focusing on places where I felt I wasn’t living out my values. One of those places was my business life, where I was feeling a lot of burnout and resentment for all the big ideas I always have and how much work they always end up being. I was feeling trapped by my own success and unclear how to dial it down.

Diana said, “Do you know that every single time I sat near you at a meal this week, you were talking to someone about writing books, reading books, or running businesses?”

I quickly scanned my memory of the week:

• I helped a neuroscientist understand how to take her work to a wider reading audience than scientists.

• I brainstormed a strategy for a psychology professor to overcome the procrastination she had been feeling about a book she was supposed to do on her sabbatical.

• I talked about marketing ideas with a woman who runs a bakery.

• I helped someone else figure out how to optimize a marketing funnel that wasn’t working — we looked at it on her phone.

• I even talked with Diana herself about the structure of her next book – and of course, I gave off the energy of someone who would raise their hand, step forward, and do a live podcast, so, of course, Diana felt comfortable asking me to do the podcast.

Wow.

Those long lazy conversations after breakfast and lunch? I was doing what I do every day at home.

I had done to myself the exact thing I wanted to group not to make me do. 

No wonder I was burned out!

You can take the internet away and you can take the temptation of certain books away, but you can’t take away the fact that I am programmed to think about books and businesses every second of every day.

I have trained my brain to do this work and I don’t know how to make it stop.

I’m always talking to my book coaching students about running a sustainable book coaching business, and one of the things I mean about that is one that you can comfortably keep doing because you are earning enough money, finding enough joy, and not feeling resentful and overworked.

Turns out the cobbler has no shoes.

A Different Way Forward

Success is amazing. We all want it. But we also have to be careful to make sure we are spending our business energy wisely.

I have never loved the word balance to describe the relationship of work to the rest of life, because for someone who runs their own business, the lines between life and work are blurred. If I want to take off Wednesday morning to play pickleball, I can. If I want to work on Saturday morning when the business world is quiet, I can. Who is to say when work and life are balanced? They are like a tightly woven tapestry and I love that part of it.

My dad, who is 85, is always suggesting that I rent an office away from my home so that I can “leave work behind.” He is thinking of the 1960s and I keep trying to explain to him that I hold my work in the palm of my hand; it doesn’t get left behind.

What I now know is that I hold my work in every cell of my brain and my body, too – and that is the place where I am going to work on creating some space that has nothing to do with what I do.

Diana quietly asked me, “Who is Jennie without all that?” Connecting with her is the key to avoiding burnout and shaking off the feelings of resentment I sometimes have for what I made.

That’s the question I brought home with me and one you might need to ask yourself.