Transformative experiences don't occur very often.  But when they do, I generally believe you have to be away from whatever is "normal" for them to occur.  Vacations are a great place to have a transformative experience.  You leave home, and in many ways leave the burdens of your life.  Because all your normal pressures aren't constantly pressing on you, it allows you to take a step back and look at your life through new eyes.

For me it was looking at where my life is, and comparing it to where I want it to be.  It was looking at the things that were missing from my life, and what was keeping me from having them.  It was also looking at the things that I was concentrating my efforts and my thoughts on, and deciding if they were still worthwhile, and having to come to the realization that they simply weren't.

But then you return home.  All those burdens and pressures that kept you from realizing all those things in the first place are thrust back upon you, and you quickly fall back into old, easy habits.  The time that you think you need to implement the changes you know you require doesn't seem to be there, and it's extremely frustrating.  You know what you have to do, but how do you do it?  Where do you start?

The cocoon is a marvelous thing.  The ability to wrap yourself up in isolation for a time, so that you can come out something completely different than what you went in as.  Where is mine?