I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RELAX

Hi, I am Miranda a workaholic and I don’t know how to relax, welcome to my life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I can’t relax, I do but I am constantly wanting to do just one last thing before I relax and poof, it’s been 2 hours already. On days when I am supposedly off work (corporate not blogging), I am not meant to check my emails or even answer the phone but I do and it annoys me. I have resorted to driving my laptop to my sister’s house and turning off my mobile to stop me from working so that I could relax.

This all started when I entered the workplace fresh out of university trying to prove myself. We were encouraged to take our laptops home in case something happened and we needed to work from home. I remember the first time I took my laptop home after work and I found myself after dinner, logging in to work on this and that. In hindsight it could have waited but I was eager to impress the boss and thankfully I didn’t last long at that company and I moved on to another company where I realised my true workaholism.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RELAX

Before I officially entered the workplace, I did a 15-month placement whilst at university at one of the big pharmaceutical companies in the world. It was through this placement that I received I wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry and I have not looked back. What I however did not know was that I would unleash my workaholism early on in my career and learn along the way that I don’t know how to relax simply because there is always something that needs to get done.

They say that when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work but they forget to say that when you love it too much, you spend too much time working and not relaxing enough to recharge. When I started my placement year, within 3-months I knew my job in and out and I was no longer excited by the work, it became mundane and repetitive. I am thankful for a manager who understand and gave me an opportunity to try other areas not know that that’s where my passion would lie that 9+ years later its the field I would choose to work in?

I am a to-do list orientated person and sometimes this works against me, I write things I want to accomplish in a week and on any given day. The slip side to this is that whatever items I don’t accomplish on the day, I move them to the next day and if the next day is my day off, well, I end up dedicating a couple of hours to ensure I tick those items off. This is an affliction I have had for the longest time and this is why I feel I don’t know how to relax.

When we all went into lockdown over a year ago, I knew that I would need to adapt to the new way of living but also carve out sometime so that I can relax. I needed to find ways to relax that did know involve technology, learn to squeeze in self-care activities during a busy week and dedicate unwinding to Sunday – a day where apart from church I barely do anything. With our new way of life resulting in my work contract being changed to 100% home-based, I knew my workaholism would eat me alive. So, even though I don’t know how to relax, here are some of the tips I implement every day to allow me some semblance of relaxation.

Re-Focus Time – 2 hours before work

In my work calendar, I have blocked out 2-hours every single morning which I call refocus time. During this time, I don’t answer e-mails, I don’t do anything work relaxed but rather, I plan my day in my heard and also use this time to workout every single morning and read a chapter of whatever book I am reading. At first I did not think this would work but it has done wonders for my mental health. I am often online until 5-8pm every single night whether on my laptop or my work mobile and because of this I needed to find a way to carve time in for me to do whatever.

I go for a walk at lunch

The only way I leave my house is if I need to do some shopping, running errands with my sister or going to the post office. Beyond that I am a homebody and even before lockdown, if I was not gallivanting across the globe on my travels, I would be home either working or watching TV. This is why I decided because I barely leave my house without reason, I now dedicate at least 30-minutes of my lunch time to going for a walk and getting some fresh air. There are days where I am in meetings all day and I can’t afford a walk so I just pace around my garden.

Adult Colouring and Word Search Book

This is a new addition to my routine, every single night before bed instead of reaching for my phones, I am now grabbing my colouring/word search book. I have found this very therapeutic and word search definitely requires brain focus and I am barely thinking about work. This book has changed how I spend my free time and its funny, I still can’t colour within the box but I am working on it. The word search is definitely satisfying once I have found all the words.

Being a workaholic is not a euphemism for working hard, I think it’s important to find a way to maintain a work/life balance and those on most days I achieve this, I am still a work in progress. I work a 9-5 corporate gig, I run this blog, have an Etsy Shop and recently started my YouTube Channel. All this requires time and time is money so in order to maintain a work/life balance, I block time for each activity. Even though I don’t know how to relax, I still block time for all activities including sitting down and doing absolutely nothing, it’s still a process.

Do you know how to relax? On your days off work, do you find yourself still doing a bit of your ‘work’ to pass time?