Why Do You Need a Meaningful Reset—Not a Mini Break?
Last week my husband and I did something a bit crazy. We casually took an overnight flight from Miami to Madrid, where we spent a grand total of two and a half days before returning—in other words, more than 20 hours on planes for 56 hours spent on Spanish soil. Okay, it wasn’t entirely “casual,” as we went there to celebrate his 40th birthday. What this short trip made us realize, however, was that by making this rather drastic move, we found ourselves completely unplugged from our family life back in Miami, allowing us to fully reconnect with one another in a way we’re never really able to back home.
Most people probably wonder, “Why bother? Two long flights, barely any sleep, all for just a couple of days?” But you would be surprised by what you can experience in such short amount of time. As soon as we landed and began wandering through the beautiful streets of Madrid, we both felt something change. Being an ocean away from home, we immediately slowed down. We laughed. We talked about things we hadn’t talked about in weeks (or years). It felt as though we stepped outside our daily rhythm just long enough to see each other with fresh eyes again. By the time we flew back, we felt completely reconnected—almost surprisingly so, given how little time we actually had spent overseas.
On the way home, I was thinking about how often we try to unplug, disconnect and reconnect with ourselves and what matters to us. Yet many times, we’re only trying—never truly reaching that stage where we are fully unplugged. I am talking about the state where you can feel your brain disconnecting, where you almost forget who you are and what you’re doing on this earth. Those rare moments where you’re simply there—walking through a new city, sipping a cup of coffee, indulging in a completely new cuisine. Mind free of stress, worries, endless to-dos. Where you are truly in the moment. And how it’s incredibly hard to reach that state when you try to force it through an hour of yoga or a quick meditation session here and there.
We tell ourselves that closing the laptop a little earlier counts as a break. Or that a quick walk between meetings, a quiet dinner at home, or a half-day on Friday will somehow bring us back to ourselves. But those moments are simply pauses. Necessary pauses, yes, but, ultimately, not more than that. We stop briefly, but we don’t fully disconnect. We rest for a moment, but we don’t truly reset. And then we wonder why we still feel tired or unfocused from the people around us and from the work we do.
What this trip reminded me of is that sometimes, to feel differently, we need something more, well, drastic—something that breaks the patterns we live in every day. It doesn’t always have to be dramatic or involve crossing an ocean, but it has to be meaningful enough to shift us out of our autopilot setting. Strong enough to shake you at the very foundation of your being and bring new awareness, new thoughts, new ways of thinking or doing things.
In a professional context, we often try to “fix” burnout or stagnation with very small adjustments: a team lunch here, a mindfulness minute there, a wellness hour once a month and so on and so forth. While all of this is great and may offer temporary relief, they rarely create real unplugging because they are not big enough to change the rhythm we operate in.
Teams experience this all the time. Leaders want better communication, deeper trust, more creativity, stronger relationships—you name it. But the environment never shifts enough to allow those things to happen. And so everyone keeps moving without any change—slightly misaligned, slightly overwhelmed, slightly disconnected—hoping that a small break will magically create a big transformation. But just like in our personal lives, meaningful change in the professional world often requires a moment that pulls us far enough away to actually see things differently. Only then can we return with the perspective we didn’t even realize we were missing.
So as I reflected on those 48 hours in Madrid, I found myself wondering how often we try to solve something important—whether in our personal relationships or at work—with the smallest possible intervention. And what might become possible if, instead of squeezing rest and reconnection into tiny pockets of time, we allowed ourselves (or our teams) a more intentional reset. Just big enough to interrupt the pattern and open space for clarity again.
