BLOG SPOT with Anna De Sanctis

We all know how important this balance is to ensure a burnout doesn’t happen but how many of us really do this?

The negative effects of a burnout can impact every area of your life, including your personal and social life. Work life balance is important as it allows you to separate work and home, meaning that any stress that comes from work should stay at work, and not follow you home outside of work hours.

Easy said than done… especially when you’re a business owner!

But to ensure burnout doesn’t happen and keep this balance intact it’s important to dig deeper, taking a well-deserved big ass break from it all, create a holiday goal… manifest on a country you would love to visit. Picture yourself getting sun on your skin, tasting foods that you normally wouldn’t taste, dancing in the streets of a city you’ve never visited and trying to pronounce words that make you sound like an actor in a movie, including the hand gestures too!

Press book on your laptop, grab that ticket, pack light, and go. Just bloody go.

I’m Coming to you from my mother country Italy. We are three weeks deep into our European six-week summer break, leaving cold and wet Adelaide. Internally, the process to get me here wasn’t easy.

I’m the type of person that needs a real good reason to get on a plane, just ask my dear Office Manager Carol who at any opportunity she’s booking my travels in a flash, whilst my apprehension and indecisive nature kicks in and out come the “if’s” and “but’s”, it’s not uncommon for her to chase me down, floor tackle me for my credit card and book the trip! I suffer from travel anxiety prior to any holiday. ‘What if my team won’t cope?’ ‘What if the business goes to crap?’ ‘what if, what if, what if,’ however the antidote to powerlessness is safety and parenting the mind is what was needed here.

After undertaking an intense inner-work program, I’ve identified that one of my fears was powerlessness whilst being away. This program was able to put my mind at ease and develop tools and systems to use to release this feeling.

With my mind at ease, the excitement of visiting my motherland and attending two amazing events, one being a spectacular wedding in the south of Italy and the other, Don’s 50th birthday to be celebrated in Sicily, which is a lifelong dream of his, just as his father did many years ago whilst when he was the same age as our son, Joseph.

As I’ve gazed over glistening seas, crab walked over hot stones into clear blue waters with beaches that are full of stones, floated in these waters that heal anybody wounds that I have endured… one being a cut foot which I was told to get stitches, however I opted for the salty waters to heal, and it did. I’ve suffered multiple food comas, countless Limoncello and Aperol sprits, bronzed my skin in the European sun (now looking somewhat like a leather bag), but most importantly enjoying life to its fullest.

I’ve hugged my dear family members, ones that I may never see again, walked cobble stoned streets that my ancestors walked, slept in rooms where they leave windows open and listen to wild boars roam the streets at night, saw a massive wolf on the side of the road, nearly passed out in Amalfi, danced till my feet hurt on a boat in the middle of the Ionian Sea off the coast of Sicily with a group of dear friends dancing 14 minutes straight to the Tarantella whilst a brigade of Sicilians surrounded us on their yachts wanting to join in on our fun.

Attended the most spectacular wedding with everything one could desire including a cigar bar topped with the finest scotch, humidor filled with the cigars and shards of dark chocolate on offer, we celebrated my loves 50th birthday, surrounded by some of our dear friends, overlooking the ocean, felt a light breeze whilst we danced the night away, and had a feast that ran beyond the eye could see.

Memories were made and my heart is full.

I’m glad I took this trip, silenced my anxieties, trusted my team, as everything was just fine. Growth. It’s amazing when you let life play out its course. So, my advice to you is to work hard, but create your holiday goal. Take that bloody well-deserved holiday, as it’s all about balance!

@barberyaustralia @barberboysau