Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #205| How To Have a Holiday You'll Truly Enjoy—Without Overwhelm and Exhaustion
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If you want a calmer holiday season, start by choosing what actually matters to you and what you really enjoy.
- 0:11Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:28Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Hello, friend.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: Good news.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: It's the most wonderful time of the year.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: I say that with seriousness and also just a little touch of sarcasm because, you know, it can be a lot, a lot of pressure, a lot of people, a lot of expectations, a lot of things for you to do.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: But what if you actually could enjoy it more while also doing less?
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: Today I'm going to offer you four real life tips.
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: These are tried and true.
- 1:05Michelle Gauthier: These are the things that I always recommend for a more peaceful holiday season.
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: I also posted about this and I got some feedback on social media asking listeners to give me their best examples of what has worked for them.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: Let's dive in.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: Let's start with tip number one.
- 1:21Michelle Gauthier: Number one is extremely simple.
- 1:24Michelle Gauthier: Prioritize.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: That sounds so obvious, but if you want a calmer holiday season, start by choosing what actually matters to you and what you really enjoy.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: This might sound like too simple or too obvious, but I think most of us go into December carrying traditions and expectations and to-dos that we've inherited or we did once and we decided to make it a tradition.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: So I recommend doing just a quick holiday brain dump and thinking about what is everything on my mind?
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: What are all the things that I have to do?
- 1:54Michelle Gauthier: And then ask yourself, if I could only do three things this year, what would make it feel the most meaningful to me?
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: And then choose your top three and let those be your focus.
- 2:05Michelle Gauthier: Just today, one of my clients was telling me that she asked her two kids who are both teenagers, she asked them both, Hey, what are your favorite holiday traditions?
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: And they both said the same thing.
- 2:15Michelle Gauthier: And then one said a second thing.
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: And so those are the things that they're gonna do this holiday season.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: Meg shared on social media, I only do traditions I actually care about.
- 2:25Michelle Gauthier: Very few make the cut every year.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: And then Jean said, I only get gifts for grandkids.
- 2:30Michelle Gauthier: Adults don't get gifts.
- 2:32Michelle Gauthier: It keeps the peace and the budget in check.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: And Kate said, We gift experiences and do them at a different time of the year.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: So there's no pressure to squeeze it all into December.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: Number two is let good enough be enough.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: Do some B minus work.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: You've heard this from me before on this podcast.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: And if you're someone who likes to do everything right to the A plus level, this next tip might feel a little bit uncomfortable, but it is a total game changer.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: Think about an area, or maybe it's all the areas where you go above and beyond and ask yourself, what would B minus work look like here?
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: So for example, when I posted this online, Maggie gave a great example.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: She said, I love sending cards, but I print address labels from Excel instead of handwriting each one.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: It saves me so much time and I don't write little notes.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: So she loves sending the cards and then she B minus the addressing of them and doesn't write a note on them.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: So she still enjoys the tradition of doing it.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: Something that I do to the B minus level, actually, it might be more like a D minus level, is outdoor decorations.
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: I love the inside of my house and I love decorating the inside of my house.
- 3:40Michelle Gauthier: On that, I do go pretty minimal.
- 3:42Michelle Gauthier: I have like two bins of stuff that I put up, so that's B minus work for some people.
- 3:47Michelle Gauthier: And then outside, I really do nothing.
- 3:49Michelle Gauthier: I'm trying to think.
- 3:50Michelle Gauthier: Last year, I think I might have put like a little fake Christmas tree on my front porch, but I just don't do anything outside.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: There's a lot of holiday joy in here, and that is just fine for me.
- 4:02Michelle Gauthier: Tip number three is to lower your expectations.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: A lot of holiday stress comes from expectations, and they aren't even necessarily expectations you think are realistic, but they're just sort of these best case scenario ideas that things are floating around in our head.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: So at my house, we have this very specific tradition that we do on Christmas morning.
- 4:24Michelle Gauthier: So ever since the kids were little, and they're 15 and 18 now, and at least one of them still really likes it.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: But I do like a scavenger hunt and I write them clues and they find one present and then they open those presents and then they get a new clue and they find the next present.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: And it's just something funny and fun that we do, and I like doing it too.
- 4:42Michelle Gauthier: Before we go on our scavenger hunt, we always eat our special Christmas breakfast, which is peanut butter cookies with the chocolates on them, you know, peanut butter blossoms, I think they're called.
- 4:52Michelle Gauthier: We eat those warmed up.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: We warm them up in the microwave, we drink them with milk, we have that.
- 4:57Michelle Gauthier: Then we open our presents.
- 4:58Michelle Gauthier: And then after we open our presents, then we have chocolate croissants, a very healthy breakfast at my house for Christmas.
- 5:05Michelle Gauthier: My expectation, I know exactly what we're gonna do.
- 5:08Michelle Gauthier: So I have that expectation.
- 5:09Michelle Gauthier: But my expectation is that if I go to all of the effort to make this setup that we all know and love, that everyone is going to be happy and nobody's gonna be disappointed about anything, and no one's gonna get in a fight or nothing bad is gonna happen.
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: Now, I really know that that's not true when I think about it, but my brain likes to offer that that will be like the best case scenario, is my expectation.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: So this is where one of my favorite tools comes in, which is the holiday prediction game, or you can just call it the prediction game if you play it, and it's not the holidays.
- 5:41Michelle Gauthier: But here's how it works.
- 5:42Michelle Gauthier: So, this example that I'm giving about my Christmas morning, if I'm playing the holiday prediction game, I want to predict what's actually going to happen instead of what I hope will happen.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: So, what will happen is my kids will get the first clue.
- 5:56Michelle Gauthier: One who's very competitive will rip it out of the other one's hand, and then they'll run towards it.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: And whoever finds it first will grab their present and then they'll open them so fast and they'll be arguing about something, and then eventually somebody's gonna be disappointed in the present that they got.
- 6:10Michelle Gauthier: Like they didn't get exactly the thing that they wanted, or they'll be fighting over a cookie, or maybe the croissants will get burned or something.
- 6:20Michelle Gauthier: So if I play the holiday prediction game, and I guess that all those things are gonna happen when my kids do shove each other out of the way to get to their Christmas presents faster, then I can be like, oh, I want one point for me on the holiday prediction game.
- 6:34Michelle Gauthier: And it just gives you a chance to kind of laugh inside your own head at predicting what someone else is going to do.
- 6:41Michelle Gauthier: I taught this in a class that I did before Thanksgiving, and people have been coming up to me all week saying, Oh, I did a good job on my holiday prediction game.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: Okay, then my last tip is for you to think about just one boundary that you can have during this holiday season that protects your peace and calm.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: So that could be like going to bed by nine every night or blocking a rest day on your calendar.
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: On social media, someone answered my question about this by saying I scheduled a whole me day.
- 7:12Michelle Gauthier: I stayed in, did a face mask in yoga, had soup for dinner, and wore pajamas.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: Total peace.
- 7:18Michelle Gauthier: Can you imagine what you would feel like for the rest of the holiday season, even if you just had one me day in there where you could do that, all of those things for yourself?
- 7:27Michelle Gauthier: If that feels like a there's no way that's gonna happen, stretch.
- 7:30Michelle Gauthier: Maybe a boundary that you put in place for yourself is you only go to one event a week.
- 7:36Michelle Gauthier: Or during this busy season, you're just not gonna work past five o'clock.
- 7:39Michelle Gauthier: So think about one boundary that you could have in place that would help create a more calm environment for you.
- 7:46Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so here's a recap of those four tips.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: Prioritize what matters and skip what doesn't.
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: Do B minus work, lower the bar, lower your expectations, and play the holiday prediction game.
- 7:59Michelle Gauthier: And then finally set a boundary for yourself.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: These aren't tips that are just good in theory.
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: These are tips that really work.
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: So try them.
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to do them all today, but just pick one that resonates, try it this week, and then give yourself credit for any shift that you make or any chaos that you relieve yourself from.
- 8:16Michelle Gauthier: If this episode gave you a little exhale, share it with a friend who's feeling stressed out during the holiday season, too.
- 8:22Michelle Gauthier: I hope you have a fantastic week and I will see you soon.
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegothier.com.
- 8:39Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.