Back by popular demand.... I've had requests to bring back our holiday stress management tips. These tips are designed to help ease the pressure of the holiday season. Please feel free to share with employees, co-workers, friends, family, or anyone else you think might benefit. The holiday season is here! Hopefully, it will be a time of warmth, joy, happiness, excitement, family closeness and religious tradition. Along with it, however, can come the feelings of being over-scheduled, financial stress, fatigue, irritability and even overwhelm. If your family has suffered a loss or significant change within the past year, you might also experience feelings of grief, sadness or depression. There are things you can do to alleviate some of your stress this holiday season, and its impact on your work and personal life. Throughout the next few weeks, we will be sharing some stress management tips, so that you can make the most out of this special time. Holiday Stress Management Tip #1 A Little Planning Goes a Long Way Start by making the choice to have a peaceful holiday season. Now is a great time to set some goals for what you want the holidays to feel like. Take a moment to set your holiday priorities. Select 2 or 3 things that you want or value most this holiday season. Examples: • Warm family moments • Honoring important traditions • Being present with loved ones • Feeling more peace and less stress Now for the hard part - drop anything from your holiday to do list that will not help your meet your goals. You do not have to attend every event you are invited to and it is okay to say "no" once in a while. Most of the time, saying "no" to others means saying "yes" to you in the form of more peace and less stress. A more peaceful you is probably the best gift you can give to your loved ones and co-workers this year. It's also a good time to do some strategizing about your holiday workload.
How do the holidays impact your work schedule?
Are there year-end projects you can get a jump start on now?
Are you taking any time off? How can you manage your workload so you can better enjoy it?
Will you be attending work-related seasonal activities that will take you away from your office?
Taking time to organize and schedule your work priorities can go a long way in helping you stress less during the holidays as well. I encourage you to give these ideas a try and would love to hear how it goes. Please contact me if you would like to learn more about our stress management workshops for employees or individual resilience coaching. Wishing you all the best for a peaceful holiday season!