As we approach September, there is more than a gentle breeze around the new beginnings that September promises us all. The ‘Back To School’ mentality fits neatly into the academic calendar and offers us all another chance to re-create ourselves. Because, of course, that’s absolutely what we all need to do at every given opportunity—re-create ourselves!
The January reset is obviously not enough, nor is the invisible summer-body finish line, or the ‘new year, new you’… we need another month to tempt our fragile brains into believing that the ever-turning seasons, along with their beauty and terror (a stark, sometimes hopeful reminder that there is nothing we can do to stop time turning), hold the critical answers to all our mental, emotional, and physical challenges.
We’re told that we are not enough simply by being, that what we need is another milestone to hang like Stonehenge around our necks, to remind us that this new academic year has the potential and hopefulness to offer us ‘everything we need’—everything we, in fact, must use to make the life changes now that we have not had the muscle to build since we tried last… January? July? Whilst also shamefully reminding us that we didn’t do it in January or July, so we need to do it now.
After a summer of overindulgence—lying on beaches, forgetting our goals, drinking too much, and connecting with the loves of our lives (if you didn’t, then of course you aren’t a proper person, so says Instagram)—we must now punish ourselves by returning to our ‘proper’ selves. Readying ourselves for the back-to-school monotony we all deserve, where summer can, of course, fade into the background for another year, until we are invited to get beach-body ready again next year, life suspended for eleven months until the holidays.
But why are we all so willing/ready to embrace the idea of holiday as fleeting?
This seed was sown a long time ago..
I’ve lived in the UK my entire life, had kids in schools for the past 18 years, and worked for many years in the education system. I know for sure that I have been institutionalised by the academic school calendar and my working-class roots. It’s not just marketers impaling us with it—I feel it in my soul! I have an internalised 50-minute stopwatch from years as a therapist and a deep sense of the academic holidays. Not that the holidays meant travelling for me—back in the day, they did nod to freedom of sorts—but also my mum’s stretched purse and quite a few long, long days with not very much to do.
But I heard about other people’s holidays, received the postcards, and understood that the lack of routine and the pressure to wash uniforms was a ‘rest’ from term time. I remember the countdown, the anticipation of the non-school-uniform day on the last day of term, the love letters with things that couldn’t be said on other, more regular days, and the general sense that the summer meant a suggested ‘better time’. I’m not sure that for many people it was actually a better time—just a different one. Of course, having something also means it will inevitably end, and in this case, it comes in the shape of ‘Back To School’ (or work, or not work, but the end of something, a finish line).
The new uniforms, the fresh books, the chance to do better than last year, work harder, come back thinner, fitter, with a new squeeze, a new language, better! It also meant less pressure on parents, who could reclaim their lives again (solidifying the idea that too much quality time is, in fact, a bad thing—something we can only cope with in short bursts, because we live it so intensely, because we wait to properly ‘be together’ or connect during the holidays—or parents are confronted with the stark reality that they were, in fact, living only for their kids, and that life outside of the holidays is really pretty shite).
All in all, this approach did—and still does—little for our sense of self, energy reserves, or a sense of a life well lived. The push and pull of holidays on and letting go involved with this holiday/non-holiday approach does nothing to help you build a sustainable, quality life. What if we considered a more moderate 12 months, with joy and pain in equal measures? No need to put any life-changing weight on the idea that we will, in fact, need to be a new person when we ‘go back to school’ in September; instead, it’s just another day of this beautiful, terrible life that we hope to be fully present in.
Let’s holiday a little bit every day.
We often overindulge in everything during holidays, don’t we? Binge on it, for fear the good stuff will end too soon. We do this because we do not prioritise ourselves daily in a more regular way—we are cultured to believe we ‘should’ only indulge ourselves at weekends and holidays, and that the needs of others—employers, families, friends—take priority at other times. The rest of the time is for grinding. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: that we are, in fact, powerless to take stock or mastery over our lives at all times, and to live with equality across 365 days.
We just introduced unlimited holidays at Self Space. I watched myself spiral as the MD and Head of People pitched to me that this was a very important way to both value people and encourage self-regulation. I was very uncomfortable, even a little horrified—not at the suggestion, but at my own resistance and response. All the antiquated ideas I thought I did not stand for reared their ugly heads. A little voice in me sounded like Winston Churchill: “I’ve got a business to run here, productivity isn’t high enough…” Ugh, awful! Yet I preach and believe wholeheartedly in mental maintenance and the importance of autonomy in our wellness journey over everything, that the psyche is self-regulating if you allow it to be. I had a little out-of-body experience watching myself struggle with the old views—my old institutionalised ideas of holidays/non-holidays—while willing myself to embrace what I know is absolutely the right way to approach life.
How can I possibly fly the flag of a system that suggests rest is the enemy of success, that joy is really only for weekends and holidays—I’m only gonna let you have 25 of those! Instead, I want to let go, fully embracing the idea that we will find balance, that we can find a way to show up and self-regulate ourselves with both purpose and purposelessness in equal measure, mitigating the need for any ‘back to school’ reinvention. I refuse to run a business that dictates how I—or my people—should live their lives and reinforce these invisible lines in the sand that we often adhere to in some way.
Let’s find ‘living’ in all the days.
What I believe helps us the most on our journey to better mental health is the quality of our presence: understanding when we need to rest and honouring that, having a moderate approach to everything so that we live in a relatively even rhythm where we can, maintaining disciplined wellness routines, and holding ourselves accountable. So, rather than dreading the weeks and stacking it all on the weekends, rather than waiting for a holiday to live your best life—or, in fact, waiting to return to school in September to be better—let’s just choose to try to show up every day with more life, more authenticity, and more action towards our own journey. That way, the invisible lines between one thing and the other will start to vanish, expectations inviting us to be a ‘new me’ will hold far less appeal, and each day holds the promise of something—maybe better, maybe worse, but something truthful.
We just launched a new coaching program at Self Space, delivered by therapists. It gives you the opportunity to take a 360-degree view of your life and look at what you want to make an impact on. It’s designed to fuel growth and help navigate matters from careers to relationships, to feel clearer, lead better, and live differently. Coaching can help move you away from the highs and the lows, the all-in or the nothing, the relentless search for more on weekends or during holidays. It can support you to live fully in all the corners of your life, so that we don’t need to hide in the calendar or the seasons.
So, let’s say a gentle F*** You, shall we, to the back-to-school mentality, which does little for us long term. Let’s take a new pencil every day if we want to!