I don't spend Christmas with my husband

I’ve been with my husband for almost 15 years (married for 8), and we’ve never spent Christmas Day together.

We met working in Greece, and at the end of the season, we went home to our respective parents’ houses.

We’d already planned to go travelling in the January, so we spent Christmas with our families and then flew to Thailand in the new year.

It was a similar set-up for the following few years – we spent summers working together in resort, spent Christmas with our families, and then went off travelling before heading back out to resort.

When we returned to the UK permanently, we moved to Leeds. The first Christmas, we decided we didn’t want to choose one set of parents over the other, so we didn’t. He went to his parents, I went to mine.

The following year, we bought a house - we completed just before Christmas and had no furniture. Moving day was scheduled for between Christmas and New Year so everything was packed up.

We decided we might as well spend Christmas with our families since we were between homes. He went to his parents, I went to mine and then we moved into our new home.

After that, it just carried on.

We see each other almost every day. We work in our home office together. Go on holiday together. Eat meals together. Exercise together. Do most stuff together. Christmas day with just the two of us wouldn't really be that different.

And because we don't live near our parents, we don't get to see them as often as we'd like so we want to spend time with them at Christmas.

We both want to see our families but they don't live close to each other or to us and neither of us drives. So it's not possible for us to house-hop on Christmas day like some people do.

Neither of us would pressure the other to compromise. So we don't.

We just go our separate ways over Christmas.

It means we both get to spend quality time with our families and catch up with school friends in our hometowns.

We never argue about whose parents we’ll spend Christmas with.

And we never have to worry about upsetting someone.

And we don’t have to spend Christmas bouncing from parent to parent or have the stress of hosting loads of people. It’s brilliant.

And the best part? We celebrate our own version of Christmas on New Year's Day.

We have a fancy breakfast and a bottle of fizz and open our presents to each other, then I cook a Christmas dinner (but with lamb because we're usually sick of turkey by then).

It means the festive period lasts longer for us - we get two Christmas days.

Plus, it means I can buy all his presents in the sale because I don't need them before Christmas. Bonus.

"That won't work for me"

People think it’s weird that I don't spend Christmas Day with my husband. They don't understand it. It baffles them.

It’s not the way everyone else does things, so that means there’s something wrong with it.

But there isn’t anything wrong with it. It works for us.

It might not work for others, but it works for us.

And that applies to everything – life, work, business, marketing - what works for some people doesn’t work for others.

So don't be scared of taking a different approach.??

Don't say "that won't work for me" before you've even tried it.

“That won’t work for me” almost always translates into “I don’t want to try it”.

We’re scared to try new things, especially if it goes against the grain. But you don’t need me to tell you the human race would never have advanced if nobody had ever tried anything new.

Around four years ago, I realised my business wasn't working the way I wanted it to. I had to make some changes.

So I did some things that I used to think wouldn't work for me.

Guess what?

They did work.

And now I get the clients I want, I do work I enjoy, and my business works around me. I don't have that feast and famine cycle.

I don't have to take work I don't want. I don't have clients who don't value what I do. I know how to attract and convert my ideal clients.

You can do it too.

It might be that you only need to make some very minor tweaks. Or it might be that you have to make some major changes.

Maybe you'll have to try some of the stuff you think won't work for you.

Perhaps you'll need to accept you've been doing some stuff that is a waste of time.

But stop telling yourself, “that won’t work for me”, and start finding out whether it will.

Instead of asking what happens if you try and don’t get the result you want, ask what happens if you don’t try, and things stay exactly as they are – would that make you happy?

Taking time off at Christmas

I recently saw a post from a freelancer in their first year of business. She was asking when she was "allowed" to finish for Christmas.

I see this every year - freelancers asking when they can take time off.

It's madness.

It's your business - you can take time off whenever you want. And you can take as long as you want.

As long as you deliver what you have promised to clients or communicate with them if there will be any changes, you are "allowed" to finish for Christmas whenever you want.

I wrote a blog post earlier in the year about how to take holiday as a freelancer - the tips in it can be easily applied to taking time off for Christmas as well (check it out here if you haven't already ).

The whole point of working for yourself is that you can work on your terms.

If you want to start winding down for Christmas today and only work three-hour days between now and the new year, you can.

If you want to avoid Christmas completely and lock yourself in the office until it's over, you can.

It's your business, your terms.

If you have good clients, they won't care when you work as long as you deliver what you've promised them.

When you're a freelancer, you get to choose how you run your business. If you don't make it work around you, you'll end up miserable or burnt out.

And you can't give your best if you're miserable or burnt out. You can't give your best if you're always stressed or anxious.

You have to look after yourself.

Check out my guide on how to look after your mental health as a freelancer (also applicable to small business owners).

New Year's Resolutions don't work

We're just a couple of weeks away from New Year so no doubt people will be starting to think about everything they'll do differently in 2024 and the New Year's resolutions they'll be setting.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is they tend to involve big changes (quit smoking, stop drinking, start running) or unspecified goals (lose weight, do more marketing, make more money).

It’s very difficult to make a huge lifestyle or mindset change overnight – you have to build new habits. And as for unspecified goals, how do you measure success?

If you set resolutions like the ones above, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Let’s take running, for example. I could make a New Year’s resolution to run a minimum of 10 miles per week. But the problem is if I miss a week, I’ve failed.

So instead, I set a target for the year – let’s say 520 miles. That still works out as 10 miles per week, but it’s slightly more flexible. If I miss a week or only manage to do 5 miles, I can make it up the following week or over the next few weeks.

So if you’re starting to think about your New Year’s resolutions, change them from New Year’s resolutions to 2024 goals.

These can be things like, ‘publish at least 12 blog posts’, 'read at least 12 business books', 'have at least two completely alcohol-free days per week' or ‘run a total of 500 miles’. They are achievable and manageable but still require work.

Thanks for reading

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Lisa