Need a real break from the daily grind? Timothy Ferriss, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, offers the following tips for getting away from it all:
The “Mini-Retirement”
1. Give up the idea of the Two-Week, “Too-Weak” vacation. Two weeks is barely enough time to de-stress from the pressure of being overworked, Ferriss argues, let alone give you time to dream, plan or refocus. It also shortchanges your locale, because you don’t really get a chance to know the area, the people or the culture.
Take mini-retirements instead – of at least a month or more. Ferriss suggests negotiating these breaks into job contracts or scheduling them as hard-and-fast if you plan your own work schedule. The payoff in rest, new ideas, and broader thinking because of the exposure to other cultures is worth far more than the money you could make heading back to the job sooner.
2. Don’t consider these extended periods of travel “sabbaticals.” A sabbatical implies that you are taking a break from everything. Ferriss recommends making these restful, relaxing educational opportunities, where you actively engage with the new culture surrounding you. Learn the language, talk to the local people, and explore new opportunities.
3. Don’t put off your biggest dreams until retirement age. Retirement may never come, Ferriss reminds his followers. Death, disease or investments that don’t come to fruition can make futile and entire lifetime of waiting. If you have a picture of the way you want your retirement to be, build in extended times in every era of life (your 20′s, 30′s, 40′s, and beyond) to try them out.
“That’s why retirement is so flawed,” Ferriss told ProBlogger. “People just assume that they’ll make enough money to stop working and then be happy. Instead — and I’ve interviewed dozens of millionaires and retirees who agree on this — you get severely depressed and even suicidal! Why? Because most people never define the alternative non-work activities that they’ll use to ‘fill the void’ once they remove work and the office.
“It is not as simple as most think. Sitting on a tropical beach is cool for about three days … For me, it’s learning new skills (especially languages), and thinking up hugely ambitious projects like this book. I’m also trying to get every teacher in every public school in the U.S. access to private investors for better materials, trips, etc. THAT is a big project! It’s exciting, and that’s what I think people should chase in life: excitement. Not happiness — the term is so overused as to have no meaning. Chase excitement, and you’ll find happiness. But not the other way around.”
Tags: 4-Hour Workweek, language, mini-retirement, new cultures, Timothy Ferriss