I have been inspired by a social media post I saw from the wonderful Lucy Barkas, if you don’t know her, check her out, she’s brilliant. It was all about the effects that events can have on yourself and your body and how tough they can be.
Event planning energy
This applies to all types of events, whether it’s a corporate something that you’re giving, or even the wedding that you’re having. It’s really important to plan in some time to look after yourself before and after. It’s quite common after the big day to feel really drained and really down and unmotivated, completely devoid of any creativity, of any big energy. You find it really difficult to make decisions and to focus. Yes it’s not just you!
The event hangover
It’s something really common that speakers can suffer with. I find it a lot with my events management clients. They have all this buildup, planning and prep towards their event and they spend the whole day delivering and teaching and sharing their experience. Then the day after, have this huge slump.
Even though the event went really well and their delegates were all really happy, they just have this huge down afterwards.
I just want to say that’s completely normal and completely natural. I call it, the event hangover, and it’s essentially the effect of running on adrenaline a lot and some people, it can be running on your nerves. If you’ve arranged the whole event yourself, it can be the worry in the run up to, even if you feel organized and well prepped, it’s still there in the back of your head. It’s still annoying your subconscious.
How to minimise the effects of the event hangover:
It’s really important that you do some things that will take care of you, that helps to soften that event hangover and also help you recover as quickly as possible.
1. Get help with your event planning
In the run up to try and get as much help as you can. If you want to plan your event by yourself and you don’t want to employ an event organizer or an event manager, that’s absolutely fine, but get people to help you. Ask people to either at the venue, assist you with your planning and plan it far enough out that you can feel comfortable and relaxed and secure in the knowledge that your event is all under control, everything’s going to plan and you know exactly when things are going to happen
2. Get help on the day
Try and rope someone in to give you a hand on the day. There’ll always be something that pops up or goes wrong or needs fixing and if you can send that person to find a member of staff to help or if you can send that person to be playing with your AV equipment while you meet your delegates, or even someone to do your check in for you so that you can concentrate and get in the zone before you deliver your content, then that’s really great and that can really help alleviate the down that you feel and the exhaustion that you feel on the next day.
3. Plans after the event
Other things to think about are planning in some time the day after your event just to relax and to take stock and just to breathe. If you plan a full day after you’ve got an event, it’s likely that you’ll be really struggling through it, that you’ll really have to force yourself to get amped up. Just take some time.
It might well be that instead of starting work at seven in the morning that you take a slightly longer morning and get started at nine and have those few hours for yourself. Whether that’s going for a long walk, go and get some fresh air, even planning a really nice meal for yourself, whether that’s a really nice breakfast or a really nice lunch can help to fuel your body and fuel your soul a little bit as well and give you that energy back.
It might be as simple as making just a short day, so you do what you need to do the day after your event and then you say, okay, that’s enough. I’m going to do whatever it is that fills me, that fulfills me for the rest of the day. That might be spending time with friends and family, that might be doing some exercise, that might be having a hot bath and reading a book. Anything that is self care for you the day after an event is going to make sure that that event hangover doesn’t go on for days and days, that it doesn’t affect your whole week or it doesn’t affect your whole weekend.
On to the next one!
It’s really important, just that little bit of prep and planning for after the event will still ensure that the event is amazing and phenomenal, but also means that you can be productive for the rest of the week as well and it doesn’t affect your entire being for that particular week.
So that’s it in a nutshell. A few hints and tips to help you stay steady and to soften the effects of event hangover and keep you on the straight and narrow, enjoying the fact that you’re running events and sharing your knowledge and sharing your expertise.
Any questions at all, pop them in the comments below and if you have any queries about events, you can contact me either on Facebook or drop me a line at lorna@myohmyevents.com and I’ll be happy to help. In the meantime, I’ll see you all soon. Take care.
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