You come home from a trip energized, proud of all the new habits you upheld for a week, and then your routine eats them alive. Turns out the brain likes vacations because they are short, low-stakes demos of a different you rather than training wheels for permanent change.
If you want more than a glow that fades, treat change like software: ship tiny, repeatable updates. Schedule regular 1–2 hour “vacation windows” where you silence notifications, leave errands behind, try one new habit, and write down what felt different. Those little demos are the only way a trial version becomes the full product.
My friend describes this as vacation people vs trip people. My husband and I are definitely trip people generally, but with kids in the picture it’s nice to get an actual vacation (relaxing) in once in a while. But there’s so much in the world we want to see!