How to Take Things Off our Plates During Holidays Months
November is the month of thankfulness, lots of entertaining, cooking, and … piling too much on our plates.
I’m raising my hand in the air! Me, Me!
I think learning about balance during the holiday season is so important, and something that took me years to learn.
This would be a good week to sit down with a journal and write out your goals for the next 2 months.
What are the essentials? The things you really have to do, that you can’t get out of.
What are the non-essentials this time of year? For me, they are parties and activities that I really don’t have to attend or be a part of.
How to avoid being over-commited
1. Keep a journal of your hopes, dreams, and desires for you and your family for the holidays.
2. Separate out the pages according to Family, Must-Dos, Dreams, Invitations.
3. Prioritize the essentials and non-essentials in to each category.
4. Family: be willing to ask your family their opinion regarding whether they want to keep traditions going, or it’s time to make a change.
5. Must-Dos: consider stopping, or changing the way, you’ve always done things in the past. Is there a better way? What would happen if you “stopped?”
6. Dream: it’s beautiful to dream and come up with new ideas. Write these down and try something new!
7. Invitations: don’t say yes to any invitation until you’ve really counted the cost.
Everyone has their own convictions regarding what is important to them. But it’s true, sometimes we do over-commit.
We all know what is essential, and learning to take off our list the events that really “don’t need to happen” is key!
The key to being sane.
And happy.
By the end of the day we need to learn to be at peace with how we have used our time.
Do you struggle with piling too much on your plate during November and December?
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Love this post – it’s so important to know what you want to get out of the season. We really can’t do it all. And, if we try, we will be so stressed and overwhelmed that we won’t be able to enjoy the things that matter the most to us.
We have a list that hangs on the inside of our front door. It’s a running list of things we want to do, e.g. museums, new restaurants to try, new recipes to try (the teenager likes to cook), etc.
I think perhaps we should make a Holiday List to help us keep focused on the things that we value most.
Blessings,
~ Dana
Cooking at Cafe D