Now’s the time to take a deep breath and re-look at our holiday pace, our actions and as painful as it may be…our attitudes.
(1) How do we feel…happy, relaxed or totally overwhelmed, bleary eyed and sleep deprived, no time to think?
(2) Is part of this because we aren’t making the time for our normal exercise breaks, healthy eating and just pure decompression moments?
(3) Do we have a good plan written down (and/or easily accessible in our mobile phone notes) so we can review it often for getting through the holidays sanely and happily instead of flat out exhausted and frustrated?
If not, mini-action plans can be huge “cheat sheets” for us and road maps to survival. Such a plan can be as simple as listing your priorities and beside each of them, making a list of what needs to be done to complete it, by when and by whom. And for all of us “list” people, it’s worth creating such a mini-action plan for the shear enjoyment alone of crossing out things as we get them done….you list folks know what I mean!
The time to make the holidays less stressful and exhausting is now…not after they’ve come and gone and we end up swearing (again) that next year will be different. So, just like double-checking the progress of your work week’s priorities on Wednesday to ensure you’re “on schedule,” mid December is a great time to re-assess how we’re handling this year’s holiday frenzy. If we’re not doing too well, then let’s cut the losses and rethink how we could improve things….not what others could do to make things better,….but what we can and will do to redirect ourselves in more positive directions.
Finally and in closing, you may want to check out my pre-Thanksgiving post, Celebrating Great Holiday Moments….Ignoring the Not So Great. It really is true that usually we don’t remember entire days, only moments of our lives….I hope you will take a moment right now to be brutally honest with yourself and think about how you are handling the holidays…are you enjoying them or just barely surviving them? Are you spreading good cheer or leaving a trail of complaints and negatives behind you wherever you go? Hopefully, you are enjoying the spirit and fun of the holidays to the fullest so far …but if not, now’s the best time for all of us to plug the leaks and regroup….When December 31 rolls around, I hope we can all say there were far more good holiday moments this year than not so good … thank goodness we’re in full control of our attitudes and actions because those two little “A” words determine the of quality of our moments during the holidays and every day!
Thanks for Visiting & Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, etc!
Nancy