ComicCon can beat you up

I’m just returning from the 50th San Diego ComicCon.

I know that I have feeling in my lower extremities, because my legs and feet are telling me that I walked several miles over the past few days. Toss in long flights, and a drive back to Toronto and that makes for a long trip.

I’ve attempted to get passes to the comic book version of Mecca for several years, and am still in a bit of shock that I was able to attend the event with my brother and two oldest kids.

In the 3-day vacation, we walked all over downtown San Diego, attended a concert, went to the convention itself, went to the ComicCon Museum for the Batman 80th anniversary event, went to a big outdoor mall, and navigated the airport to and from San Diego.

It was a jam packed trip. I’m physically tired but not mentally tired.

Why?

Did I have a packed agenda that had checkboxes?

No.

Did we list all those things mentioned above, that we had on our schedule? Nope.

On the agenda was the following:

Go to the ComicCon Museum on Thursday.

Go to a concert on Thursday night.

Go to ComicCon on Friday.

That’s it.

Everything else was a go with the flow moment. We wandered around, stopped in a pub (or 6), ate when we were hungry, looked at shops. Went to Petco Park (Padres were out of town, boooooo).

I find when you pack your agenda too full, you create increased stress and contribute to burning out.

We had 3 things planned. 1-2 things per day. Everything else was go with the flow.

Was your last trip like that? Or did you have a printed out agenda with 36 things to do in 2 days?

Vacations are meant to refresh, explore, renew. Too many of us try to pack in too many things in too short of a time, which has us returning to work worn out, instead of refreshed and renewed.

For your next vacation, I suggest only doing 1 activity per day. 2 max. You can always go back to that destination.

Create slack (aka no plans) time so you can sit by the pool, go for a walk, have brunch, have a drink, etc.

Get to and from the airport early. Bypass the long line stress and people watch. Humanity at its finest when they’re stressed about missing a flight.

Happy vacationing!

Author(s)

  • Michael Levitt

    Chief Burnout Officer

    Breakfast Leadership, Inc.

    Michael Levitt is the founder & Chief Burnout Officer of Breakfast Leadership, Inc,, a San Diego and Toronto-based burnout prevention firm. He is a Certified NLP and CBT Therapist, and is one of the world's leading authorities in burnout recovery and prevention.  He is also a Fortune 500 consultant, #1 bestselling author, and host of the Breakfast Leadership Show, a top 200 podcast on iTunes. He is a 2x Top 20 Global Thought Leader on Culture with Thinkers360. He is a former Healthcare executive, CIO, and CFO overseeing $ 2 Billion budgets, so he’s seen and done it all.
    His main keynotes are:
    1. Burnout Prevention: How To Avoid Your Own Year of Worst-Case Scenarios 2. Workplace Culture: Create A Workplace That People Will Beg To Work With 3. Working Remotely With Boundaries: How To Accomplish More At Home, Without Burning Out