When Balance is Elusive

The CO Department of Health sent a notice to the parents of students at my kids’ school about three highly contagious viruses going around.

One got it. Then the other. Then the other got it again or got another one, or has it still.

Who knows.?

He felt awful yesterday.?

This is working yesterday when I was supposed to be in meetings live in Denver in the afternoon followed by a holiday dinner with friends.

All ready to go out!

Didn't happen. Stayed home with this little guy instead.

We have family coming in town next week.

I haven’t wrapped a present.

I haven’t bought much of anything.

We’re wrapping up year end projects.

I’m trying to take advantage of some quiet time when people are out of the office to focus exclusively on my list that’s a bit more proactive.

In short - it’s 12/13 and there are a little over two weeks left in the year and the balance that I write about all the time??

Not finding it.

Feeling the same?

Here’s what helps me.?

I recognize this.

I won’t feel "balanced" for a bit.

There. Sounds small, but simply acknowledging the time of year that we’re in, the 1,000 directions we’re pulled, the responsibilities that we have to our families, to our jobs, and just wanting to enjoy the season makes it seem like it’s all too much sometimes.

Here are some steps I find that help during this time.

Plan - even if planning is a lot of free time. Those who read Hard Stop have seen that I plan out 16 hours of my day during the week to get through everything that I need to. That doesn’t mean every single ? hour slot is allocated and planned out with exactly what I’m doing. Last night from 5PM - 8:30 PM I just wrote down “kids/dinner/games.” I had to cancel my friend holiday party in the city and wanted to make use of the time to get a night with my family since none of us were leaving the house and spreading around this sick.? I didn’t specifically write down Head Banz and Scrabble and Sushi Go. That just happened, but it allowed me to sit by the fire with the Christmas tree on and just enjoy. Block time if you need to give yourself time “off” to do what’s important to you.

Control what you can control.? Remember that the holiday that you’re about to enter is a choice. You can choose to make some of it harder or easier on yourself.?Not a popular opinion sometimes, but yes -- we do some of this craziness to ourselves. For example, our Santa brings one present for our kids and they get a couple of things from us. That’s our choice in how we approach the holidays; we get a couple of family games, a few presents each so I don’t feel the stress of all the stuff I have to buy and all the things I need to wrap and feeling all the stress. I get to just enjoy the time more. I take the same approach for the dinner, and the cookies, and the decorations, etc. I choose what I want to take on and don’t take all of it on if that will cause more stress than it’s worth.

Mindset. Just as we control what we can control to eliminate as much stress as possible, I also try to just be mindful of the moments where it’s feeling like a lot. Pause. Acknowledge it. My favorite room is the living room with the tree up, with the stockings up on the mantle. When I start feeling the inevitable stress of the holidays, simply pausing and acknowledging it gets me through and back on track.

Don’t worry if you don’t feel balanced the next couple of weeks.

Don't even expect you will. Enjoy the season, time off, time with your family, time to reflect on the year and plan the upcoming one. Forget balance until 2024 ;) - but it doesn’t mean that you can’t implement some steps when it feels too much.

Enjoy this holiday season!