Go to school. Get a degree. Get a job. Climb the corporate ladder. As women, we’ve been told if we do the ‘right’ things, we’ll be rewarded. But is that really all it’s cracked up to be? Linear careers might sound like a safe option, but they’re often inflexible, not family-friendly and restrictive.
Could a non-linear career give you more freedom and independence?
I’ve been self-employed for 15 years, and when people ask me: “Why did you start your business?”
My reply is: “I broke my back.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Yes, the reason I actually started my business was because I broke my back snow boarding in 2009.
It wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t the path I’d imagined for myself. While studying my business degree at university, I thought maybe one day I’d start a business. But breaking my back made me stop. Quite literally. I was forced to rest for 10 weeks and wear a back brace, warned that if I didn’t take the rest seriously, it could lead to permanent injury.
It made me ask myself “What do I want for my future?”
The answer: I wanted freedom. To be in charge. To have control. I wanted to run a business and run my own life. So, on September 1, 2009, my business Lovelly Communications was born. A dramatic start to a business journey, but I started. And I am still running a profitable business today.
You don’t need to take the traditional career path. You, too, can choose your path. You can take an alternate path and have a successful business or career doing what you love the way you want.
This could mean starting your own business, consulting, or even creating a side business that takes the pressure off having all of your eggs in the corporate career basket.
That’s not to say it’s all rainbows and sunshine all the time. I have faced challenges but I want to share with you how I combine business, travel and self-care to live a life I love. Not one day or some day in the future. Not when I retire. Now.
It’s called bleisure.
Bleisure is the art of combining business and leisure, and it’s the secret to reimagining your career and creating something that works for you.
I define bleisure as the ability to integrate travel and leisure into my working life. I no longer subscribe to the work-work-work-then-play model of living. That is the model I learned growing up, and it is the model most of us take for granted. That model says, “I deserve leisure only when I’ve earned it. Then I can switch off.”
Living a life you love is possible for everyone. You may not want to visit 76 countries like I have; you may not even have a business. It might be something you want to do on the side, or a desire to work from anywhere and not just the place that you live. You might even just want to include a few extra trips a year around your corporate role. Great, the bleisure life allows you to decide what works for you.
Because this idea of working for years to enjoy your life later is redundant. It’s tiresome and it’s boring, and I don’t think it works. It leads to unhappiness. That is not living. A bold statement? You bet.
Are you doing a version of this?
You work hard all year for one big vacation. Out of each 52-week year, you get just four weeks that are all yours to be and do whatever you want. Then you come back and quickly feel exhausted again. Or perhaps you never take a break. No rest or vacations. Maybe you are saving up all your leave for some day—one day in the future.
Well, sadly we don’t all get that. None of us knows when our life will be done. You don’t have to wait to enjoy your life when you retire … if you’re lucky enough to get there.
Bleisure is about including travel, rest and recharging often and not waiting for the next vacation.
Simple decisions will boost your energy, build up your reserves and help you live a life you love throughout the year. Like adding an extra night or day at the end of a work trip, easy.
But it’s also about building your work around your life, and not the other way around.
I pose a few questions to you to think about what your bleisure life might look like:
- What do you love doing for fun?
- Who do you most enjoy spending time with?
- What part of your work do you really enjoy?
- How do you rest and recharge? Sleep, exercise, sunshine, massages, reading -you decide.
- Does all of your work have to be done in an office or at a desk at home?
- How can you bring more flexibility into your work?
- If tragedy did strike tomorrow, what’s the one thing that comes to mind that you’d love to do?
I don’t want you to have to wait until you break your back, lose your job, have a loved one pass away or any other tragedy to start living the life you love. Start with small steps but choose your own path, and it doesn’t have to be the traditional one.
A few other things to help you start to implement the bleisure life:
Diversify your income
Stop thinking of a job or one business activity as the only way to bring in income. Diversifying your income streams is a great way to create more freedom.
Embrace remote working
Take your work with you, think of your laptop and phone as your office. You can run your business continuously while including travel and not subscribing to the feast-or-famine way of doing business or travel for that matter.
Take regular breaks
You don’t have to break yourself physically, emotionally or mentally—a forced break—to take a break. Build breaks into everyday life and practice self care on the daily.
Family can be part of your work and travels
Stop separating personal life and work life. We have partners, children and extended families. Be vocal about how they are a part of your life and start to include them in your activities. My husband and son regularly come with me on work trips and we travel after. It’s not every trip and it’s not always, but we get to do a lot more together because I’ve harmonised work and life. The shift starts with you and your view towards work and home life. It doesn’t have to be so black and white.
Embrace the traveller mindset
Even when you’re at home, you can travel locally. Bleisure doesn’t mean jet setting on international trips all the time. Travel is seeing your surroundings with fresh eyes. Find joy and wonder in simple things, daily.
The bleisure life is about choosing how the harmony of business, travel and self care work for you, and this might mean creating a non-linear career path where your income isn’t a salary and you’re not tied to a desk. Whether you’re in employment or running your own show, you can choose to prioritise leisure, rest and what you enjoy to start living a life you love, now.