It’s day 1 after the Christmas break. My team at Bowler Hat, the digital marketing agency I manage all broke up on the 22nd of December and I broke up a little earlier on the 18th. We were all tired as we headed into the end of the year and ready for a break to recharge our batteries with a much needed break.
So, 16 days off for me and best part of two weeks for everyone else yet I have come to work to a room full of tired looking, dreary faces. This is not a terrible place to work. Not by a long shot. I also know that nobody is totally over the moon about returning after a holiday yet everyone looks more tired than when we broke up.
Frankly, I pretty much get where they are all coming from and feel like that myself. What is going wrong that a holiday is such a demotivating experience? Surely, we should all be rested and ready for another challenge without the toils and tribulations of work which is what makes us so tired after all – right?
You Booze you Lose
In my case I know there is one thing that contributes to this malaise – alcohol. Alcohol slowly but surely grinds me down. In the usual run of things this is not so bad but when we have a two week holiday with lots of socialising then soon enough I start to see a dip in my general mood and positivity.
Leave this long enough and I really see my edge go. I get grumpy. Tired. Just not operating with my usual zest for family, work, life etc.
Are we all in the same booze drenched boat?
I can’t talk for everyone but certainly, as we get older, and drinking at all activities becomes the norm then we are spending a lot of time not operating at 100%. I don’t even really mean the epic, never drinking again hangovers but more the insidious creep of just having four or so drinks every night.
100 days alcohol free
I have talked about this before and my thoughts that alcohol may well be affecting me in a negative way and I had toyed with the idea of doing a year of no booze.
I think that a year as a concept seems really daunting. I have done a month before and you do feel better but it is very much a willpower exercise. It is seemingly not long enough to change habits and educate. It’s a bit of a bell curve as you feel better and then start to wonder if anything is different. Life is still life after all. Certainly, at 40 changing habits that are 25 years in the making can’t be fixed in just over 25 days.
I think to really see if you can change habits and make an informed call on this you have to look at at least three months or 100 days. So, I am going to do three months with the thought of reviewing my thinking on booze then at three months in. Maybe I will do a year. Maybe I will commit to a new degree of moderation. Maybe I will hit the bottle! Who knows. But I will report on my progress here and keep you all in the loop.
Here’s to a happy and productive 2016.