Five Ways to Relax Without Guilt: A Personal Journey
by Brent Roy, MCC, who now knows how to relax beyond the guilt
I wasn’t sure what to expect from my wife when she caught me on the hammock, book in hand.
“You’re finally learning to relax,“ she exclaimed (without a hint of sarcasm) upon greeting me at our RV near the water. I’d gone up a day early to get prepped for the weekend and to have some time to unwind without feeling guilty.
I realized she was right. The reason we got the RV was to get away on summer weekends to relax. As an executive coach, I work from home, and it was my wife’s idea to have a place to make a clean break from work and home responsibilities.
This is our third summer at weekend RV life, and it’s taken me this long to fully appreciate it. As well, we added boating to the list of activities to look forward to.
That meant learning how to safely operate a boat and passing the exam, backing the boat on a trailer down a boat ramp, docking, navigating, and much more.
As summer nears its end and we enter the autumn of our lives, it’s refreshing to truly experience relaxation without guilt.
Here are five things that helped me to really relax without the guilt:
Create boundaries from work
Did I really need to re-learn to relax without guilt? In 2018, I endured a year-long burnout, partly because I allowed my once well-maintained fences between work and home to fall into disrepair.
One of the first things I did was scout out some good Wi-Fi options to ensure I could work in my RV if I wanted. I tried it, I discovered I could do it, but I didn’t love it. It muddied the waters between work and relaxation, essentially creating another work/home non-boundary.
Lesson learned: I will only work there when absolutely necessary. My RV is there for me to relax without guilt.
Align with your values to relax without guilt
My values include meaningful work, freedom, and lifelong learning.
Meaningful work
I’ve been fortunate to have many careers and hobbies, and I loved them all.
My current passion is executive coaching, and while it’s my profession, it doesn’t feel like work to me. Working with my clients to create a space for them to figure out what’s important to them brings me a lot of joy.
I do it because I love it. And I love the autonomy I have over my schedule to ensure personal recharge time is built in. Translation: In the summer, I don’t coach on Mondays and Fridays!
Freedom
Being in control of my own schedule, being near the water and on the water with family and friends exemplify freedom for me. Taking short breaks to take care of other things, like impromptu visits from my daughter and granddaughter during the day.
Lifelong Learning
All the work involved in becoming the only Master Certified Coach in New Brunswick involved a LOT of learning. Living in and maintaining an RV took learning and operating a boat accessed additional brain power as well.
Let go of productivity
Learning, working, and flexibility are all positive things for me. Disconnecting from the worries of the world by reading a book, enjoying the beauty of my surroundings near or on the water, or going for a walk or a bike ride are all activities that replenish me.
I’ve learned they need to have no other purpose than to provide rest, fresh air, or help me relax and feel guilt-free, and recreation to recharge my batteries.
Like a dentist with bad teeth or a chain-smoking gym teacher, helping clients with boundaries and presenting burnout is incongruent from a coach who never earned to relax. Instead, I am embracing the ICF’s Core Competency #2: Embodies a Coaching Mindset.
In part, this means being mentally and emotionally prepared for sessions. This can happen consistently when the coach takes deliberate steps to replenish his/her energy.
Go with the flow
I no longer look at client cancellations as a negative. With 20-25 sessions on the books at the start of the week, it’s not unusual for 3-5 cancellations to occur. These are facts of life and understandable, but they result in holes in my schedule.
You never know where these holes will end up. Sometimes they’re nicely distributed throughout the week, but often it’s a chunk out of a day. As I’m writing this, I had a break from 11 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
It’s a sunny day, so I used the break to go on a nice bike ride with my wife. It was a wonderful way to relax without guilt! We then had lunch together, and now I’m sitting on my deck, completing this article. It’s refreshing and serves to clear my mind, helping me to relax without the worries.
Have a reflective coaching practice
Earlier this summer, I sent a picture of my granddaughter and me on the boat (my daughter, her husband, and my wife were also aboard) in a text message to my friend and business partner, Jamie Slingerland.
I included the caption: “An essential part of my reflective coaching practice.” I was half-joking, but Jamie replied, “I agree with you. You are embodying a coaching mindset by practicing mindfulness and recharging yourself.”
Being on the water with people I love does help me engage in self-reflection and mindfulness. The personal growth beyond the learning curve of becoming a boater is the awareness that it’s not only OK, but it’s necessary to make time for leisure activities.
They bring me joy, they recharge me, and they allow me to bring a more relaxed version of myself to my coaching sessions.
So, yes, my dear wife…I have indeed finally learned how to relax…without guilt!
About Brent Roy, MCC
Brent Roy is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC)—a designation held by fewer than 5% of ICF credentialed coaches—and is currently the only MCC in New Brunswick, Canada. After three decades in communications and leadership roles, he now focuses on helping senior leaders through executive coaching and supporting ACC, PCC, and MCC aspiring coaches through ICF mentor coaching. He works online with English speaking clients across Canada and around the world.
