So,
Last week I jetted off to Greece - marking the first time I've left the country in 12 months.
Not only that but it was also the first time in 6 months I took more than a few hours off. I was scared, excited and honestly all over the place because I was just exhausted.
But once I touched down in the stunning island of Zante (Zakynthos) I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
Instead of sitting in front of my laptop all morning, every hour of the day and late into the night, I spent my mornings by the pool, sunning myself on the beach and sometimes partying into the night.
I've spoken before about how important it is as a CEO, Editor and Managing Director to make sure I don't burn out, and that's what taking this holiday was all about.
Honestly I agonised over whether I should be taking a holiday at all, but I forced myself to let go of some control for just seven days, to take a deep breath and take time to sort through my thoughts.
Sipping on a strawberry dacari in a bikini listening to the sound of the ocean...I did finally have a moment of peace.
I've always been an over analyser and a worrier but I really tried to focus on the positives during my holiday, and for a few days I took off my CEO hat and became a 25-year-old girl again...it was lovely.
I can honestly tell you I didn't miss my laptop...not for one second. I struggled with the idea of bringing it or not, so instead I brought my iPad, thankfully I didn't even use that in the end.
WiFi and an iPhone was enough to access emails and communicate with my staff, so I stuck with that, and was even bold enough to turn off my phone completely at times.
This month has been very important to me. Because I got to celebrate the first birthday of Goss.ie and that means working on our second year in business, expanding our team, innovating the site and creating new ways to make my business modern and fresh.
Just weeks after our big birthday party I am already working on new commercial deals, exciting new ways to spread our content and our team is continuing to grow.
On a personal level I got to do work on a project I've had in the works for a while. I'm always writing scripts, books etc, and I finally pushed through something I've been trying to finish (in between my cocktails and playing pool tennis of course).
I am a creative person so relaxing for me still means writing, or at least thinking about writing something, let's just say there are a lot of bullet points sitting in a draft on my phone now.
Being away made me appreciate the little things I used to enjoy when I had free time... like reading a good book, going to sleep before 2am, losing my thoughts in day dreams and creating characters and stories in my head instead of worrying about the next deadline, signing off on accounts or chasing sales.
I visited Olympia (where the Olympic Games began), I took a boat trip around the island and saw some beautiful caves and the clearest waters I've ever seen. If mermaids existed they would live in Greece (seriously).
Of course I partied as well. It's been a long time since I've gone out for drinks when it hasn't been for a launch/function/fashion show/work event... it felt nice being able to let loose.
The highlight of my partying nights was the infamous White Party, which took place on a small island just off Zante.
Sitting on the rocks with my toes in the ocean, listening to dance music and sipping a Sex on The Beach I reminded myself that I'm still in my twenties, I'm still just a girl and I'm still at the beginning of my life.
Having time to reflect in Greece I took a step back and really looked at my achievements so far and realised that hard work well and truly has paid off and will continue to.
I'm already planning another few days away for the end of the summer, and I'm not allowing myself to feel guilty about that (planning a lot more strawberry dacaris to be fair).
Everyone has so much going on in their lives, in their minds and I'm learning more and more that focusing on the positives, ridding myself of negative people and negative situations is the only way to live.
I thought about that a lot while I was a way, I've always been a huge fan of The Secret and I'm going to be putting that back into practice again in a bigger way.
A happy and healthy CEO means a happy and healthy business :)
PS... I heard some cracking tunes over in Zante, so here is a Spotify list I made with some of my favourite songs.
Ali
x
Dreaming, Believing and seriously WERKING...
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