3 Easy(ish) Steps for a Peaceful and Successful Holiday Season

I love the holiday break. No meetings. No getting up early. No kids' lunches. No hockey tournaments. No emails (well, at least, not as many). The slow period after Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year” in many ways.

How we spend our holidays and what we do may look different from our coworkers, colleagues, friends, and neighbors. But what we need at this time of year is fundamentally the same—rest, reflection, and rejuvenation.

3 Steps for a Restful, Restoring, and Fulfilling Holiday Season

My holiday “mistakes” are notorious—like the time my husband and I travelled to town nearby for Christmas when it was -43°C outside, or the year we spent two weeks on the road with sick little kids, New Year’s parties I didn’t want to be at, hosting four holiday parties one year (in a fit of insanity), or draining our bank accounts on trips at peak prices.

The holidays are the one time of year when the world hits the PAUSE button. You can be off the hook from the busyness of life for just a bit. So, take advantage. BIG advantage. The rest of the year will suck the energy (sometimes, even the life) right out of you through its deadlines, deliverables, events, kids schedules, and so much more. This is not the time of year to go full tilt. There will be plenty of that in 2024.

Based on what I’ve learned over the years (often the hard way), let me share 3 easy(ish) ways to set yourself up for a peaceful holiday season and a successful start to the New Year.

1. Ask Yourself “what works” and “what doesn’t work” for the holidays.

I often ask clients a straightforward question: “What’s Working and What’s Not Working?” While it seems so basic, it’s also powerful. It forces us to draw a line in the sand. It’s a demarcation.

Don’t go for some Hollywood or Instagram image of what the holidays should look like, whether the image is a Martha Stewart episode, a Joanna Gaines Christmas Special, or ogling over posts of friends skiing in Whistler or basking on the beach in Maui.

Images are powerful, but they’re just images. The holidays are not perfect for any of us.?

Think about what really gives you energy this time of year. Reflect. Be honest.?

Family and other obligations aside, what do you really need this time of year to feel refreshed and fulfilled? What do you truly not like to do this time of year?

• Is doing something new or exciting what you need??
• Do you need rest and time to yourself??
• What will make you energized for 2024, and what will leave you drained?

I love traveling in general, but I hate traveling this time of year (at least, at this stage of my life). I’m too tired from work and I find traveling with three little kids too expensive, busy, and germy. I love hanging around the house and doing low-stress activities and clean-up projects. What gives me energy is getting outside, reading, exercise, time off the internet, and lots of sleep. No, it’s not as exciting or as Instagram-worthy as a trip to Hawaii, but it genuinely gives me what I need to make the holidays restful and successful.

2. Give yourself a “clean break” from past projects and habits.

A restful and rewarding end of the year is also about giving yourself what I call a “clean break.” Imagine a “break” like a cut, chop, or severance of the past. (I stole the term from my friend Karen Stewart who is a divorce expert and wrote the popular book Clean Break.) Don’t worry, I’m not implying you need some sort of “Eat, Pray, Love” moment where you break away from your spouse, family, and job to move to Tibet.?

A clean break is, in a sense, about “divorcing” your old self and your old projects, tasks, to-dos, and ways of working.?

Give yourself a clean break by finding the best stopping point possible, perhaps even the single next action you can take, so you can get things off your mind. You may have a project you’d feel relieved to finish. You may have a few key people you need to follow up with.

Think about what is weighing you down at this endpoint of 2023 and what could help you feel lighter or more mentally detoxed.?

• What can you “finish” (or what stopping point can you reach) to give yourself a break?
• What are the few tasks or activities you can do to give yourself a “clean break” for the year??

I personally have a few client and marketing projects and a few administrative tasks that are giving me a psychological hangover of sorts. While they aren’t the hardest or most involved things I want to get done, they are the tasks I know I need to push myself to a point of completion in order to give myself the restful holiday break I want.

3. Ask the questions and do the things that ground you.

I love this story of Shaun White at the 2014 games in Sochi. After winning back-to-back gold medals at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, Shaun White was the favorite to win gold, but he didn’t even podium. After the disappointing performance, White tried to figure out what he did wrong:

“I picked apart my personal life away from the snow. I picked apart things that were upsetting me: How I was portrayed online and in ads. Do I like who I'm working with? When was the last time I spoke to my brother? When was the last time I hung out with my friends? When was the last time I worked out? Those are the things I started to change in my life. It was nothing to do with snowboarding. I made all these changes that made me a more complete, happier person. And then once I went back to snowboarding, I was just a happier guy on the snowboard.”

Fast forward to the 2018 Olympics where it came down to White’s final run. “But this time, at the top of the pipe, I had the complete opposite feeling. I had this overwhelming confidence that I was about to win.” Shaun put down one of the best runs of his life, scoring a 97.75 to reclaim the gold.

The moral of this story: Being grounded is good for you. Being grounded makes you a better person. We perform better when we are grounded.?

The holidays give us a chance to ground ourselves in many ways. Time away from our emails or schedules gives us a chance to think about what matters. Time with family (even if it isn’t perfect) forces us to reflect about who we are and where we came from. New Year’s resolutions let us plan for where we’re going.

Think about grounding yourself over the holidays.?

• What activities or people in your life help to ground you??

• Can you find time to reflect on who you are, what you can reasonably take on, and what matters most to you leading into the New Year?

While I am no Olympic athlete, I know what it feels like to be ungrounded, chasing too many wild ideas, goals, late nights in the office, gimmicks, so-called “experts,” and activities. Leave it to a snowboarder nicknamed the “Flying Tomato” to teach us how being ungrounded leads us to fail, flop, even wipe-out.?

Being grounded, on the other hand, lets us fly.

THANK-YOU! Till Next Year

Thank you for catching this holiday edition of my Leverage Your Knowledge newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed already, please click at the top. And as I pause until my first newsletter of 2024, I’m grateful for your interest and readership and wish you a happy, healthy, and restful end to 2023 and all good things in the coming year.

New Workshop: “Productivity As a Team Sport”

Over the past year, I've been speaking about “The New Culture of Documentation” at a number of conferences, professional events, and for various organizations (of all shapes and sizes) featuring content from my new book The 24-Hour Rule and Other Secrets for Smarter Organizations.

For 2024, I’m delighted to offer a new presentation and workshop “Productivity As a Team Sport,” which explores the world of personal and team productivity and how teams can work better together and really can do more with less.?

Whether participants are productivity junkies with established habits or newbies to the subject, the frameworks are fresh and actionable, and combine a mix of conceptual (even aspirational) ideas to rethink what productivity is about and tactical tools your team can implement immediately. If you have a need for a speaker for your organization or professional group, or a day of learning, professional development, lunch and learn, or other specific training needs, I’d love to help you out!