Hearing people's distress over the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Valentine's Day, is always upsetting to me. Holidays are supposed to be joyous times filled with celebration, love, and fun.
The source of stress, and subsequent distress, always seems to lie in expectation...a word I feel so strongly about I know I could write a whole book about it's stranglehold on each and every one of us. But, that's for another time.
The source of stress, and subsequent distress, always seems to lie in expectation...a word I feel so strongly about I know I could write a whole book about it's stranglehold on each and every one of us. But, that's for another time.
Having de-cluttered my life, and holidays over the recent years, I really wanted to offer a series of Tips of the Day to simplify any holiday. Now that this huge holiday season is upon us, I thought, starting Monday, I would post 1 quick suggestion a day, allowing people time to put these ideas in place for the upcoming celebrations.
I started jotting down notes, making 7 the magic number. 7 Tips, 7 days...1 week of tips. I like things orderly. As I mentally ran through the process it was important to keep my ideas simple and to-the-point. I always want people to succeed, so it was essential to keep each suggestion do-able.
Quickly the whole process got out of hand. I realized that because something made sense to me didn't mean it would make sense to anyone else. Detailed explanations were called for. Changing hats, I moved into 'processing mode' breaking down each step into bite-sized pieces, rapidly turning 1 liners into multi- tiered, hierarchically, bulleted subsets, complete with Roman numerals, the alphabet, dots and parenthesis. Well, shoot. My Tip of the Day just turned into a book of the day.
I find that I still want to offer this information. It was a liberating process to go through and I would love for others to feel the same sense of joy and relief I now feel about holidays. As I am often called to do, I am going to have to change my expectations, downsize the best I can, in some areas, and expound where necessary. Some Tips will be nice, clean, short 1 liners, others, are going to require a full blog to provide the complex thought process behind the recommendation.
What this whole process forced me to remember is that change comes in small nibbles. If we are to successfully institute change into our lives there needs to be a clear, concise plan, broken down into steps that are not overwhelming, otherwise failure is almost guaranteed. And, ultimately, I want you to be successful.
So, bear with me as I walk you through this transformational process. And, it will be, if you follow the guidelines and stick to the plan. There will be bumps in the road. You may feel uncomfortable for awhile. But, if you make a plan and stick to it, change will happen.
Happy Holidays and stay tuned!
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