Yesterday was the first day of summer ☀️, and it made me think about a recent conversation I had with a client who’s been in her role for decades.
She described the familiar early June push: managing competing priorities while feeling stretched thin. “I’m looking forward to summer Fridays and some time off,” she told me. “Once things calm down a bit and I have more breathing room, I’ll feel fresher.”
Her optimism was genuine, and I completely understood it. I’ve often felt the same way, hopeful that a summer break would help me return as a more grounded version of myself.
Since then, research and experience have helped me understand that a slower summer pace won’t shift how I respond to stress. But there’s something that will.
Vacation is Great, But It Doesn’t Create Change
You probably already know this from experience, butresearch confirms it: vacation benefits fade rapidly after returning to work, typically within the first week. Studies show stress levels return to baseline within two weeks of returning to daily routines.
Think about your last real vacation. Remember that feeling on Sunday night when you realized you had to go back to work Monday morning? By Wednesday, you were probably right back to your old patterns of stress and reactivity.
That’s not a failure of willpower. It’s neuroscience.
Why We Fall Back Into the Same Patterns
Most of what we do each day is automatic, even though we feel like we’re making conscious choices. Our stress responses—how we handle pressure, our default reactions, the voice of our inner critic—are hardwired into our brains through repetition.
Vacation doesn’t change these neural pathways. It just temporarily removes us from the usual triggers.
This is where the research gets even more interesting. To maintain genuine resilience and well-being,you need a minimum ratio of three positive thoughts and feelings to counteract every negative one.
This isn’t just feel-good advice; it’s based on how our brains work. Due to evolutionary wiring, our brains hold onto and amplify negative experiences far more than positive ones. Our ancestors needed to remember the color of the poisonous snake, but it was much less important to remember the beautiful butterfly.
Without intentionally working on this 3:1 ratio, our brains default to focusing on what’s wrong. And that default setting doesn’t change just because we’re on vacation.
The Practice That Creates Real Change
When I was a school leader, even when things were going well, my inner critic had a lot to say. Feedback that wasn’t meant to be personal felt personal. A difficult conversation would have me second-guessing myself.
What I needed was to learn how to catch the negative thinking in the moment and do something different.
True transformation is 20% insight and 80% muscle building. Most of our attempts at change stop at insight. We go on vacation, attend another workshop, promise ourselves things will be different, and then wonder why nothing sticks.
What works is daily practice. When you notice stress, anxiety, self-doubt, or that feeling of just pushing through—try to counter with at least three positive thoughts:
🎯 Look for the learning: “What might this challenge teach me?” (Even when you’re frustrated, there’s usually something to gain.)
💙 Practice Self-Empathy: Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a good friend going through the same thing.
✨ Find something to appreciate: Notice one thing that’s working well right now, even if it’s small.
For example, when a conversation left me questioning myself, I learned to pause and think: What did I handle well in that conversation? How would I comfort a friend feeling this way? What might this teach me about communicating more clearly next time?
I know this sounds almost impossible when you’re stressed. But this kind of practice—even when it feels forced at first—can change how your brain responds over time.
🌱 Interested in trying this out? This summer, I’m guiding a small group of five accomplished leaders through a seven-week mental fitness program starting Friday, July 18th, and finishing the week of Labor Day.
It’s designed around exactly what this newsletter describes: building the capacity to stay resilient and wise in your everyday leadership. The program takes 15 minutes of independent work on weekdays, an hour over the weekend, and 30 minutes in a guided discussion once weekly. That’s 2.5 hours a week for real, lasting change in how your brain responds to stress.
The first step is understanding what’s individually getting in your way. There’s a quick five-minute assessment that reveals the specific thought patterns behind your stress—what researchers call your “saboteurs” (those inner critics and limiting beliefs that hijack your best intentions).
If you’re curious about what might be holding you back, you can take the assessment here and then schedule a complimentary discovery session to go over your results together. I hope you’ll gain clarity about your patterns, which is an essential first step.
I hope we can finish the summer feeling genuinely different. Not just rested, but equipped with new ways of responding when the pressure builds—ones that feel natural and grounded, even when things around you are hard to manage.
I’d love to know: what’s one stress response you’d love to change? 💭
PS – Thank you for the positive feedback about last week’s webinar on “Raising Confident Tweens.” If you know a parent navigating those tricky tween years, the recording is here. The same approaches that help leaders build resilience work beautifully for helping kids develop genuine confidence, too.