Rest is Not a Reward – Why Are We Still Doing That?
No Vacation Required
Updated 08/2026
In a culture that fetishizes "the grind," we can treat rest like a punishment or, at best, a forced time out when we've finally crashed. In this episode, we talk about how mindfully, proactively balancing activity and rest is fundamental to building a life you don’t need a break from.
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,
COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
❓Why is it important to stick to routines that work? Sticking to effective routines frees up mental space and willpower. By locking in core habits like diet, exercise, and daily schedules, you create the stability needed to grow and try new things in other areas of your life.
❓Why do people change habits that are actually working? People often abandon successful habits due to a cultural push for constant reinvention. There can also be a fear of consistency, as "new" things are often perceived as more socially valuable or exciting than steady, quiet progress.
❓How does social media affect our ability to maintain consistency? Social media often rewards novelty and "performance" over consistency. This creates external pressure to constantly reinvent the wheel, making people feel as though they aren't doing enough if they are simply maintaining what works.
❓Why are popular travel destinations often worth repeating? Popular destinations are often popular for a reason. While there can be social pressure to seek out obscure or "cool" locations, returning to places that genuinely bring you joy and relaxation is a valuable form of recycling what works.
❓How can you identify which routines to keep in your life? A simple way to identify valuable routines is to review your day or week and look for habits that both "fill you up and free you up." These are the core practices you should lean into to build a stable foundation for your life.
CHAPTERS
(00:59) Mind Share: Going “No Contact”
(03:58)The myth of constant innovation
(05:31) Building a core life
(07:05) Shaking things up
(09:02) There is no social currency in consistency
(16:03) A simple tip for reviewing your week
(16:33) Worth the Time: Oprah’s podcast on going "No Contact"
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TRANSCRIPT
Caanan (00:00)
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?
Caanan (00:45)
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.
Kent (00:53)
What is it? I was there.
Caanan (00:56)
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.
Caanan (01:14)
Yeah, so this is something we've done many
Kent (01:17)
Anita.
Caanan (01:18)
times. Sometimes we write to voters in swing states. Sometimes we write and thank nurses we've never met or whatever.
Kent (01:26)
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.
Caanan (01:34)
Yes.
Kent (01:35)
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 (01:47)
Yeah,
Caanan (01:47)
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. Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, it's a nice way to do something to better the world.
Kent (02:20)
So this week we're talking about
Kent (02:21)
rest. And it's sort of an extension. Good old rest. It's sort of an extension of last week where we talked about maintenance. 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
Kent (02:49)
balance, you've got to have restful periods and active periods. But rest deserves an exclamation point because people are so 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
Kent (03:17)
intermittently, not all or nothing, all or nothing. Yes. 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
Kent (03:45)
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. We were so happy to hear finally any kind of rest that people talk about is good. And, and good for the body, of course, but
Kent (04:12)
It was like she'd finished a race and now deserved to take care of herself. I know you have a lot to say about that.
Caanan (04:23)
Well, it's funny that you just said
Caanan (04:25)
that 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. ⁓ 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?
Caanan (04:53)
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. Yeah.
Kent (05:03)
Funny this was completely unintended but listening to the way you frame 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 ⁓ Living a life. You don't need a break from where yeah vacations are great. That's part of a no vacation required life, but this bigger idea that ⁓ this ⁓ these
Kent (05:31)
breaks are happening within a day, within a week, within a month in the cadence
Caanan (05:36)
With in the cadence of your life
Kent (05:40)
of your life.
Caanan (05:42)
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 (06:06)
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. A punishment.
Caanan (06:20)
is not a failure. Yeah.
Caanan (06:25)
So, know, last week or yeah, last week we talked about, did you hear that?
Kent (06:30)
Y'all
Kent (06:30)
rest is not failure
Caanan (06:34)
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 walkng schedule. ⁓
Kent (06:57)
Interesting that you use the word joke because I think I'm gonna roll the roll the tape I don't think you sounded too jokey that great pain you
Caanan (07:06)
Yeah, no, folks. Is
Caanan (07:09)
no joke. No joke.
Kent (07:12)
So why did you say you were joking about it? OK, go back.
Caanan (07:16)
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 require life thinking, ⁓ 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
Caanan (07:44)
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
Caanan (08:14)
a break. You don't have to earn downtime. ⁓ This is fundamental people. This is like breathing and eating. You don't have to earn air. You don't have to ⁓ earn a break.
Kent (08:38)
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 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. Yeah. At this point. I want to talk about vacation mode in this talk about rest and how
Kent (09:05)
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 ⁓ getting away from those ⁓ wildly swinging ⁓
Caanan (09:26)
Yeah.
Kent (09:27)
edges ⁓ of what work ⁓
Kent (09:30)
and rest mean and trying to capture the concept of balance more holistically and having rest periods and work periods and all the other kinds of periods that make up you in a given day, in a given week, in a given month. So,
Kent (09:51)
You're building a life you don't need a break from. And I think this kind of vacation mode concept, feel like it's, do you feel like it's kind of ramping up? feel like I, with the stress of the world, I see this more like rest is my reward. Or rest is failure. I think it's very dangerous.
Caanan (10:15)
Yes,
Caanan (10:15)
or this idea that vacation is a break from my life.
Kent (10:21)
Yeah.
Caanan (10:21)
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.
Caanan (10:35)
I remember this feeling very intensely of push, push, push.
Caanan (10:41)
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. Yeah. And then while we were on vacation and you all know how this feels, we were like,
Caanan (11:10)
Sunday's scary super uber X plus worried about getting back and ramping back up.
Kent (11:20)
Yeah, I didn't know you were gonna mention this and it's so great. So many things just came to mind. We talk about this with clients. Vacation actually ends this definition of vacation, let's call it the global dream of vacation that the two of us have been fighting against for over a decade. But in truth, the vacation ends
Kent (11:51)
the minute it starts. ⁓ Because ⁓ that anticipation part, when you're grinding, you know, Caanan 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.
Kent (12:10)
You are holding on to that anticipation and it's such a yummy part of the natural or this sort of not natural, this like 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,
Kent (12:35)
you're out of anticipation mode for the vacation and then you're just anticipating.
Caanan (12:42)
coming
Caanan (12:43)
back. You're in Sunday Scaries mode. Yes. You know what? Can I riff on
Kent (12:47)
You're on Sunday Scariest
Kent (12:48)
mode 13 days before you're going back.
Caanan (12:52)
I just have to say this thing, it's a little bit of a sidebar, 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 plan to keep them busy and
Caanan (13:23)
Kent and I are thinking, what are you doing?
Kent (13:26)
You went there. You did this.
Caanan (13:29)
You're on vacation.
Caanan (13:30)
⁓ No, you can't. You're intending to rest. ⁓ And you've started your vacation and now you are running around. Yeah. You are creating a version of your harried life that you ⁓ need to escape. And you're just doing it in like this insane vacation mode.
Kent (13:47)
Yeah, you know, this is my hot button. I know I promise you would not bring this up.
Caanan (13:51)
Kent's
Caanan (13:51)
pointing his apple pencil at me almost like it's a weapon.
Kent (13:55)
I have so much to 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?
Caanan (14:17)
Yeah.
Caanan (14:18)
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 (14:50)
I really want to talk about the idea of active balance because this
Caanan (14:55)
Wait, I love the term active balance.
Kent (14:59)
Yeah, active
Kent (14:59)
balance because I think people ask and it's what we want to do in this podcast. 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 talk about solutions. And I think about this idea of active balance. So not everything is going to be a two week trip.
Kent (15:23)
to Greece. No, you've got to introduce those things – Active balance –
Kent (15:28)
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. That you're leaning into other things that move your body, stimulate your brain, get you thinking about ideas.
Kent (15:55)
Helping you to find quiet in the middle of a day. Yeah. Many times in the middle of a week. So you're having this active balance where I'm going to keep saying it. Rest is not failure. Rest is not a reward. It's just part of you.
Caanan (16:14)
It's like eating
Caanan (16:15)
lunch, which you're probably also not doing and you need to take time to eat your lunch.
Kent (16:21)
It's
Kent (16:21)
part of you and part of what you need. It's a very holistic approach to
Kent (16:30)
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 (16:39)
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, and 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
Caanan (17:09)
designing a life that allows for more balance. And 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 and finding ways to design a life that allows things like active balance.
Kent (17:34)
and why do we need vacation mode and why do we need this ⁓ 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, Caanan, and ⁓ also start looking at your quote unquote everyday life. ⁓
Caanan (18:00)
Yeah,
Caanan (18:00)
I I have to interrupt you. I have to add in or chasing something.
Kent (18:04)
chasing something. how do you as we say, 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
Kent (18:31)
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.
Kent (18:53)
You want to know what's worth the time?
Caanan (18:56)
Tell the people. Educate the people.
Kent (18:58)
After yeah a 10 year break Yeah,
Caanan (19:04)
my god, was it 10 years?
Kent (19:06)
I mean I was in fifth grade Okay, sixth grade okay middle school, okay a
Caanan (19:13)
getting closer.
Kent (19:15)
Killer series is back and that is the night manager. it has such illustrious names as Tom Hiddleston
Kent (19:28)
Hugh Laurie Olivia Coleman
Kent (19:33)
This is one where we truly can't say much
Caanan (19:35)
We can't.
Kent (19:36)
because this is what makes any good series or movie or book good if you start yapping. Yeah. And we can start yapping, but if you start yapping, you're giving stuff away.
Caanan (19:46)
Any conversation would need a spoiler alert and we just won't do it. But it's really good. And it's shocking.