Break Through the Holiday Hustle

​5 Tips to help you enjoy a stress-free holiday season

By Michaela Anderson, CCP

​The holidays are a wonderful time to celebrate with family and loved ones. There can also be a lot of stress paired with your Figgie pudding, fruit cake, and Michael Bublé. Here are a few simple tips to help keep your stress levels to a minimum over the holidays. 

Tip 1: Quiet Time

With dinners, events, parties and celebrations the holiday season can be incredibly overwhelming. Plan space in your schedule for time to breathe, relax, and process your thoughts so that you can be more present and enjoy the holiday hustle. Whether it’s in the morning when you wake, or just before going to sleep, take 10 minutes just for yourself. 

Turn on some relaxing music, pull out a good book, or simply close your eyes and listen to your breathing. Avoid playing with your phone during this time and really focus on creating some quiet space in your mind. There are great Apple Music curated playlists for meditation and yoga that can help you wind down and relax. You can also set a timer on your phone to ensure you give yourself enough time to actually relax.

Tip 2: Failing to plan is planning to fail

What are the key pieces of your regular schedule that keep you energized, feeling happy, and ready to take on the day? If it’s exercise, plan ahead to get your workouts in when you can. Even a simple at home bodyweight circuit or a YouTube yoga video will do the trick.

If you are a person who relies on food prep to keep you on track with your goals, ensure you give yourself enough time to get it done. When you start to feel like you’ve got too much going on, ditch any parts of your schedule that aren’t serving you and your goals. Pick the most important thing you can do each day to keep you on track and feeling great and commit to that.

Tip 3: Learn to say the word "No"

The holidays are about spending time with family and loved ones, they are not about saying yes to every single thing and running yourself ragged. Learn to say “no” to additional responsibilities or events that will tip your holiday scale from fun to overwhelmed.

If you have a multitude of events and gatherings to attend, prioritize the ones that you must attend. Send a simple Christmas card, phone call or email to those you cannot join to let them know that you were thinking of them.

Tip 4: Set your intention

Plan out a few minutes right before the family event begins to sit somewhere quiet, take a few deep breaths, and set a clear intention for yourself. What do you want to focus on during the event that will allow you to let go of stress and the things you cannot control?

What if your focus on the event is to give each person a compliment? Or to share something you are grateful for? What about focusing on something positive with each person there? Having a positive focus can help you avoid spending your holidays thinking about the negatives and the things you can’t control.​

Family gossip can be toxic for gatherings as well as relationships. Make a commitment to not feed the fire of gossip with any negativity or energy. Tune out, change the subject, and find your way back to your focus for the event. 

Tip 5: Don't expect perfection

There is no such thing as perfection, and going into holiday gatherings we sometimes get caught up and set our expectations too high. We expect ourselves to be the perfect hosts, and our family to be the perfect guests. Remember that we are all human, and none of us is perfect.

Give yourself a break, get help, delegate, order in, buy pre-made, and let yourself enjoy the holidays. There is no need to pretend to be Martha Stewart. Sometimes it’s more fun to simply buy from Martha Stewart instead. 

I hope these tips help you ditch the holiday stress and help you enjoy the hustle this year.
 
Happy Holidays!
Mickey

---

About Coach Michaela "Mickey" Anderson

Michaela Anderson is a Certified Coach Practitioner (Life Coach & Executive Coach), Mindset Specialist,  Level 2 CrossFit Trainer, and a 200 YTT Certified Yoga Teacher.  She is the team leader at CrossFit Closer and works with individuals and groups to improve their mindset and achieve goals.