3 Strategies to Having a Relaxing and Happy Holiday Season

The Holidays are quickly approaching and so is the end of the year. This is the time, no matter how many times we say we won’t, we either overspend, find ourselves stressed with too many activities and not really relaxing and enjoying time with the people we truly love.

We find ourselves at office parties, networking parties, family gatherings, Holiday shopping, buying and wrapping gifts. Then before we know it, the New Year is here and if we have been fortunate to take some time off…then back to work we go.

What can help you to make the most of the Holidays going in with no anxiety and stress and coming out feeling rested and happy? My belief is there must be a plan in place, a strategy set.

The first strategy is to make a decision now on what you want your Holidays to look like. Decide which parties and gatherings you will attend and which ones you won’t. There will always be someone saying or even you saying to yourself, “You have to go to the party.” But the reality is no you don’t have to. If you don’t go, will you lose your job? If you don’t go, will you lose your home? If you don’t go, will it be the end of the world? Yes, someone may not like the decisions you make for yourself. Yes, there may be hard decisions to make but don’t let that hard decision be whether you will have a good Holiday season.

The second strategy is to make a plan and set a budget now on how much money you will spend during the Holiday season. Include things such as the gifts you will buy, money you will spend on having family and friends over and other activities which may be dinner and/or movies out with them. This will help you ensure that you do not overspend and there will be no surprise credit card statements nor a deleted bank account without your knowledge.

The last strategy is to make sure there are plans in place for what you want to do for you over the Holiday season. Is there a book you would like to finish writing? Is there some reading you would like to do? Is there a close friend you would like to sit down with and just catch up? I laugh to myself when I think about this because I used to ask my mother what she was going to do and her response would be, “Baby, I am going to play with my toes if that’s what I want to do.” That meant she was going to do absolutely nothing.

I am not a Grinch. I do believe through the Holiday season there is a way I can have colleague time, family time and me time. I have just learned through prior stressful Holiday season experiences to plan ahead and go into it so I can be restful and happy when the New Year arrives.

Cynthia L. Hatcherr
The Inspirational Goal Strategist
c/o Cynthia L. Hatcher All Rights Reserved