We left “dream jobs.”
We volunteered overseas.
We built a business.
We turned a travel blog into a (second) career.
We ran a few marathons and even more half marathons.
We wrote a book.

We made a life.

“It’s so easy for you guys,” is something we’ve heard at every inflection point and new milestone. “You just know what you want.”

But we didn’t “just know” what we wanted.

None of the remarkable aspects of our No Vacation Required happened because we had effortless clarity. It happened predominantly because we committed to figuring out who we are – and then continued to, time and time again, stay true to that commitment.

It came through a lot of reflection, recalibration, and hundreds of small, self-aligned decisions.

That’s it. That’s the thread. The one thing that’s made everything else possible.

Rachel Lake, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA. Photo Credit: Us

It Didn’t Start with a Plan

When we decided to live (what we now call) a No Vacation Required life, we weren’t running from anything. We had good jobs, stable lives, plenty of success. Inside, though, those measures of success didn’t feel like the best use of us – as individuals or as a couple.

“Okay, so where do we want to be in 5 years?”

That question was the prevailing wisdom – take a stab at what might feel like the best use of you in 5 years. We didn’t have the answer. And not because it’s such a difficult question. Because it the wrong question.

So we eschewed the prevailing wisdom and asked a different question altogether: What do we want our days to feel like?

And then we answered it.
And then that question led to other similar questions.
And we answered those.
And eventually, our life started to look like our answers.

The Better Things Got, the More Ourselves We Became

There’s this idea that knowing yourself is a luxury – something you get to explore after you’ve earned the title, the house, the whatever. But in our experience, everything *really* good — the clarity, the progress, the fulfillment — happened because we fore-fronted figuring out ourselves.

Knowing ourselves helped us make decisions with confidence, knowing that they were grounded in our strengths and values. It helped us to stop performing what templated notions of success looked like. It got us out of our own way and allowed us to stop climbing ladders that had always been leaning up against the wrong walls.

The more we learned about ourselves and honored our personalities – our strengths, our values, our natural rhythms – the more grounded and expansive our lives became. The more we realized that there weren’t any right walls. We had no interest in climbing.

That’s Why We Do This Work

We didn’t create No Vacation Required because we wanted to build a brand. It’s a life we started living and decided to blog about as we volunteered and traveled around the world.

We’ve now created something bigger because we kept (and keep!) meeting people who were burning out, numbing out, or quietly checking out — even though they were doing all the “right” things. And in an increasingly turbulent world with an increasingly psychotic socio-political landscape, that feeling of dissonance only grows stronger within most people.

Through our lived experience, we saw what made the difference.

It wasn’t just discipline (although we are disciplined).
It wasn’t just strategy (although we’re appropriately strategic).
It wasn’t just privilege (although that’s a factor).
It was self-knowledge — and the willingness to build a life around it.

That’s why we’re telling our story and are about to launch even more tools to share the inspiration.

You Don’t Need a New Life. You Need to Know Yourself in This One.

Start with how you want your days to feel.
Big changes often begin with small questions. Don’t wait for a masterplan – follow the feeling.
You don’t need to fix yourself.
You just need to know yourself. That’s the difference between chasing more and choosing better.
The life you want isn’t out there.
It’s in how you show up – today, tomorrow, and the day after that. Everyday Fulfillment isn’t a finish line. It’s a way of being.

You don’t need to blow it all up.
You don’t need to take a sabbatical.
You don’t need to disappear into the wilderness.
You just need to know who you are.

Then you might decide that a sabbatical or disappearing into the wilderness makes perfect sense.

Onward & Upward,