Rest is Not a Reward – Why Are We Still Doing That?
No Vacation Required
Is Rest a Sign of Failure or a Necessary Rhythm for Growth?
In a culture that prizes "the grind," we often treat rest like a punishment or a forced pause only when we've finally crashed. In this episode, we break down why true balance isn't about total inactivity; it is about the fluidity and active maintenance required to build a life you don't need a break from.
From analyzing the "vacation mode" trap to the guilt of adding stretching to a fitness routine, this episode explores how to integrate restful periods into the cadence of your daily life. Whether you are struggling to justify a lunch break or rethinking your entire relationship with downtime, learn why getting right with rest is one of the smartest moves you can make for your body and mind.
Onward and Inward,
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Why are we still doing that?
(00:45) Mind Share: Writing postcards and taking action
(02:20) The capstone of balance: Moving from maintenance to rest
(04:23) Micro-moments: Built-in rest vs. the "ride hard and crash" cycle
(06:58) Rest is not failure: Lessons from barre class and mobility
(08:30) Deconstructing "Vacation Mode" and the Sunday Scaries
(14:50) Active Balance: Integrating brain stimulation and quietude
(18:53) Worth the Time: The Night Manager series review (Tom Hiddleston & Hugh Laurie)
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Rest is Not a Reward: You do not have to earn a break any more than you have to earn the air you breathe.
Active Balance: True balance involves a holistic approach that includes periods of activation and quiet throughout the day, not just once a year.
The Anticipation Trap: The traditional version of vacation often ends the moment it starts because we swap "anticipating the trip" for "anticipating the return".
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Caanan
Most of us treat rest like a punishment, a forced pause when we've finally crashed. We've convinced ourselves that balance means total inactivity. But if we know deep down that this kind of numbness actually makes us feel more anxious, not less, why do we think balance requires doing nothing?
Kent
Welcome to the No Vacation Required podcast, where we break down tired traditions and outdated thinking by asking the question, why are we still doing that? It's all about building a life you don't need a break from, being more present and fulfilled, and showing up in a complicated world that needs your voice and unique talents.
Caanan
So I'm going to jump in with mindshare because we just did something that's totally on my mind and I'm excited to talk about it.
Kent
Wait, what is it? I was there.
Caanan
You were there. I know we have full days. It's hard to remember, but this was just yesterday. We wrote some postcards to voters in swing states and, you know, it's just a little thing we did to make the world a better place, put a positive message out there. Yeah, so we, this is something we've done.
Kent
Many times.
Caanan
Many times. Sometimes we write to voters in swing states. Sometimes we write and thank nurses we've never met or whatever.
Kent
I'm happy you mentioned that because we try to keep this mindset that there's always something you can be doing. If you're sitting and marinating in your own despair, it's like drinking poison, right? You're not doing anybody any good. So yeah, I felt good. It felt good to do that. We did it with friends and had a beer and felt like we were.
Caanan
Yes. Yeah, we could have sat at this table and drank beers and kvetched about the world, which is something that's, you know, that's legit. There's a lot to kvetch about. But maybe next time you do that, also do some of these postcards to swing state voters. There are lots of organizations out there. I won't even point to one specifically. But yeah, it's a nice way to do something to better the world.
Kent
Yeah. So this week we're talking about rest, and it's sort of an extension. Ah, good old rest. It's sort of an extension of last week where we talked about maintenance. Uh, and it's the capstone of this series on balance, where we talked about energy management first, prioritization, as I just referenced last, we talked about maintenance and now we're talking about rest. So rest is really linked to maintenance, of course, because to maintain balance, you've gotta have restful periods and active periods. But rest deserves an exclamation point because people are so bad at it. So bad at it. Yeah. So there's this idea like balance requires, we're saying, why, why are we still acting like balance requires doing nothing? Well, balance requires doing nothing, but intermittently, not all or nothing, all or nothing. Of course, this was a big theme, like I said, in our maintenance episode, but rest. This episode is about getting right with rest, because rest, rest, as you said, isn't a punishment. These, these strange ideas we have about rest. We have a friend who has a, uh, a health scare kind of long since known about, and she was saying, it's time that I, it's time I took care of myself, she said, and we were like, it was time you took care of yourself 10 years ago. You know, we were so happy to hear finally, any kind of rest that people talk about is, is good. Uh, and, and good for the body, of course, but it was, it was like she was, she'd finished a race and now deserved to take care of herself. I know you have a lot to say about that.
Caanan
Yes. Yeah. Well, it's funny that you just said the maintenance isn't do nothing, go, do nothing, go, because you're absolutely right. But what you, I think what you actually mean is it's not like ride hard, crash, ride hard, crash. Yeah. But in fact, balance is to a certain degree, do nothing, go, but in little micro moments, like a day should have do nothing go built into it. Do you know what I mean? Instead of like, I'm going to push until I'm exhausted and then I'm going to fall apart. And then I'm going to push until I'm exhausted again and fall apart.
Kent
Funny, this was completely unintended, but listening to the way you framed that, I'm thinking, No vacation required. This is one of the, the core Yeah. Foundational things that we thought of when we came up with the idea of no vacation required of, of living a life you don't need a break from. Yeah, vacations are great. That's part of a no vacation required life, but this bigger idea that this, these breaks are happening within a day. Within a week. Within a month. In the cadence of your life.
Caanan
Yes. In the cadence of your life. So two things come to me when I think about rest and the bizarre way we as a society look at rest. Like we just said, people are really bad at this. One is that rest is not a failure. And I feel like so often taking a break is seen as, I couldn't keep pushing hard. So now I have to take a break.
Kent
Yeah, I'm going to do a common Oprah thing and be like, wait, hold up. I had an aha moment. Say that again. And then Oprah will say it. Rest is not a punishment.
Caanan
Rest is not a failure. So, you know, last week or yeah, last week we talked about.
Kent
Yeah, rest is not a failure. Did you hear that y'all? Rest is not failure.
Caanan
That was a very good Oprah impersonation. Last week we talked about our fitness routine and joked about taking, doing this barre class, but knowing that we needed to bring in some stretching and mobility workouts to break up our, what I think most people would consider to be intense running and hiking and walking schedule.
Kent
Interesting that you used the word joke, because I think I'm going to roll the tape. I don't think you sounded too jokey about that. That great pain you were experiencing. So why did you say you were joking about it? Okay, go back.
Caanan
Yeah, no, folks. Bar is no joke. No joke. I bring this up because bringing in mobility to a certain degree and we're the experts on balance and maintenance and living a no vacation required life. Thinking, oh, we need to do more stretching. I'm just being honest with y'all, felt like a little bit of a failure. Like my body couldn't keep up with our run schedule. I'm super sore, but I feel like I'm failing if I have to do these stretches. I know that's ridiculous. And you know, I don't think that, really think that, but deep down somewhere I did. So I resisted to a certain degree, adding in these stretching exercises. Stupid, I hear it. But I think it just puts a little bit of a spin on that rest is not a failure. My second point, rest is also not a reward. You don't have to earn a break. You don't have to earn downtime.
Kent
Yeah. I want to talk about vacation mode. This idea that I'm in vacation mode or I'm going to be in vacation mode or, uh, just this mentality that I've got a vacation coming up and we have, we have friends doing, what are they doing? Like a nine month countdown at this point. I wanna talk about vacation mode in this talk about rest and how we as people have the weirdest relationship with rest. And thinking again, back to our coming up with a life that we didn't feel we needed a break from. This idea of, of getting away from those wildly swinging edges of what work and rest mean, and trying to capture the concept of balance more holistically and having rest periods and work periods and all, all the other kinds of periods that make up you in a given day, in a given week, in a given month. So you're building a life you don't need a break from. And, and I think this kind of vacation mode concept, I feel like it's, do you feel like it's kind of ramping up? I feel like I, with the stress of the world. I, I, I see this more like rest is my reward. Or rest is failure. I think it's very dangerous.
Caanan
Yes. Yes. Or this idea that vacation is a break from my life. Which is fundamentally the message of no vacation required. Which is you should not need a life you need a break from. This vacation mode thing, I think about our own life. I remember this feeling very intensely of push, push, push, work, work, work, and then take a break from our life. And what strikes me most is not so much the, like, looking forward to the vacation. It's actually that, to a certain degree, we would fear the vacation because it meant we had to stop doing all the productive things. And then while we were on vacation, and you all know how this feels, we were, but Sunday Scary's super Uber X plus worried about getting back and ramping back up.
Kent
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know you were gonna mention this and it's so great. So many things just came to mind. Nah, we talk about this with, with clients, like vacation actually ends this definition of vacation. The, let's call it the, the global dream of vacation that the two of us have been fighting against for over a decade. But in truth, the vacation ends the minute it starts. Because that anticipation part. when you're grinding, you know, Canaan and I at this time, we're doing 4 a. m. marathon training runs because it's the only time we could see each other. You are holding onto that anticipation and it's such a yummy part of the natural or this, this sort of not natural, this, this like, uh, original old school. Why are we still doing that version of vacation? The minute the vacation starts, and what you were just talking about made me think about this. The minute the vacation starts, you're out of anticipation mode for the vacation and then you're just anticipating coming back.
Caanan
Yeah. You're in Sunday scaries mode. You know what? Can I riff on?
Kent
Yes. You're on Sunday scaries mode 13 days before you're going back. Yes.
Caanan
I just have to say this thing. It's a little bit of a sidebar, but people also, people suck at rest. People suck at vacation. Think about like, we went on a cruise recently and people are filling every second of their time and kind of freaking out if there isn't an activity planned to keep them busy. And Kent and I are thinking, what are you doing? You're on vacation. No, you came. You're intending to rest and you've started your vacation and now you are running around. You are creating a version of your hairy life that you're need to escape and you're just doing it in like this insane vacation mode.
Kent
You went there. You did this. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is my hot button. You promised you would not bring this up. I have so much say about this, but yeah, the tie in, the tie in is undeniable. What are you doing? You are so over scheduled and this like wearing the stress of your vacation mode, like a badge of honor, but it really doesn't feel like a vacation mode badge of honor because you seem super stressed out, right? Yeah.
Caanan
I know. Kent's pointing his Apple pencil at me almost like it's a weapon. I think it's because, as you were saying, like the vacation ends, the day it starts, because then the anxiety about returning from vacation comes in, and now you need lots of things to fill your time so that you don't have to focus on how terribly anxious you are about this break coming to an end.
Kent
I really want to talk about the idea of of active balance, because this, active balance, because I think people ask, and it's what we wanna do in this podcast. Like we're answering questions, we're giving ideas, we're using the insight we've gained from the work we've done with clients and our own lived experience to, to talk about solutions. And I think about this idea of active balance. So not everything is going to be a a two week trip to Greece. No, you've got to introduce those things, active balance, into your lived real life. So in addition to work, your career, the career piece of the pie, which we hope you're scaling back and, you know, on a larger scale, hope you're realizing that's just one segment of the full you. So you're leaning into other things that move your body, stimulate your brain, get you thinking about ideas, helping you to find quiet in the middle of a day. Many times in the middle of a week. So you're having this active balance where I'm gonna keep saying it, rest is not failure. Rest is not a reward. It's just part of you. It's part of you and part of what you need. It's a very holistic approach to looking at balance and creating a life in balance, which is a big part of creating your version of a no vacation required life.
Caanan
Wait, I love the term active balance. Yeah. It's like eating lunch. Which you're probably also not doing, and you need to take time to eat your lunch. Yeah. And I'm glad you said creating a no vacation required life because there are ways in your life now, however it's structured, to add in balance, this idea of active balance. But we understand that not everybody can go full Don Draper and take a nap on the couch in the office in the middle of the day. You've got to start designing a life that allows for more balance. And that's where, that's where we come in. That's where no vacation required comes in. Doing what you can do now in the life you have, but also starting to reframe the way you look at your life going forward. Yeah. And finding ways to design a life that allows things like active balance.
Kent
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And why do we, why do we need vacation mode and why do we need this, uh, demonizing rest and grinding hard? We need it because the truth is we're probably running from something or avoiding something. So in the spirit of what you're saying, Canaan, always also start looking at your quote unquote everyday life. Or chasing something. So how do you, as we say, uh, how do you do what you love dot every day dot, which is what we strive for. So there's probably some things that you're avoiding or chasing or that you've got to get real about so that you can actually create this existence that is in this beautiful balance, whatever that means to you, but ensuring that it involves all the parts of you, the parts that need activation and the parts that need rest. You want to know what's worth the time? After, yeah, a 10 year break. Yeah, I mean, I was in fifth grade. Okay, sixth grade. Okay, middle school. A killer series is back, and that is... The Night Manager. It has such illustrious names as Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Coleman. This is one where we truly can't say much. Because this is what makes any good series or movie or book good. If you start yapping, you and we can start yapping, but if you start yapping, you're giving stuff away. Thanks for listening to the No Vacation Required podcast. For more information, including services designed to help you build a life you don't need a break from, check out novacationrequired.com. And if you found this information helpful, please subscribe.
Caanan
Yeah. I'm gonna, I have to interrupt you. I have to add in or chasing something. Tell the people. Educate the people. Oh my God, was it 10 years? Okay. We're getting closer. We can't. Yeah. Any conversation would be a, would need a spoiler alert and we just won't do it. But it's really good and it's shocking.