Christine: [00:00:00] Hey friends. So excited to be back with you for another episode of the MilSpouse mastermind show. Last week on the show, we talked about how we set boundaries, especially as we are stepping into the holiday season with all of the parties and things that people are asking us to participate in. And how do we determine what matters most and set boundaries so that we can prioritize what matters to us, prioritize our family, and really learn to enjoy how we’re living and just be able to take the season and, and be present without feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and pulled in all directions.

So today I want to continue this conversation about how we navigate the holiday season and how we keep ourselves from feeling overwhelmed, stretched too thin and headed towards burnout. So the topic of today’s episode is how to [00:01:00] have the best holiday available to you. I am typically a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person.

Really taking the time to plan ahead has helped me so much. And I want to share what I’ve learned in my journey so far. So let’s dive in to how we have the best holiday season available to us.

Are you tired of putting your own dreams and plans on hold? Do you feel stuck waiting for some future season to chase your dream? You and my friend were made for more, more than the managing of schedules, keeping up with kiddos and holding down the home front. Hi, I’m Christine, a military spouse of over 10 years, mom of littles and coffee connoisseur.

I’m here to help you navigate life. As a military spouse, get unstuck and craft a life with purpose. You have something valuable to offer. And when you pursue the things that [00:02:00] light. On fire, you trade frustration for fulfillment and isolation for a life of impact. It’s time to discover who you are meant to be because together we can change the world.

So this morning, well, really last night I realized that our internet had gone completely out. We’ve lost power a couple of times this week, and now our internet is completely down, woke up this morning. It’s still out. So there’s a lot of things that. I get done as a work from home mom. It’s really hard when most of what you do relies on being connected to the internet.

But you know, what I can do is record an episode for you. So I thought, hey, I’ll just sit down and start talking to us about how we have the best holiday season available. 

This idea comes from one of my favorite podcasts that I listened to, which is that pantsuit politics podcast. And they really coined this term. Well, I don’t know [00:03:00] who coined the term, but they use it a lot that talks about having the best day available to you. So I thought, what better opportunity than to talk about how to have the best holiday season available to us? So when I started thinking about what has made a difference in my life and how I have gone from feeling completely overwhelmed by all the things that need to get done in the holiday season. And then you reach the end of the year and you just feel overwhelmed and exhausted and stressed out. And you’re not really starting a new year off on the right foot. You’re just going into it with zero energy and overwhelm.

Last year was the first year that I really did all of the things that really allowed me to enjoy my December. Now I know it’s a little bit abnormal because I live on a tropical island. So Christmas doesn’t have the same trappings and all of the [00:04:00] other things that can sometimes fill our calendars.

And we still have Christmas parties and decorating and lights and stuff. It doesn’t feel 100% like a winter because we’re still wearing tank tops and shorts and all of that, but I was really able to be present last year. And so I started thinking about what things that I did to help me be able to enjoy this season more.

And I want to share what I’ve done and how I’m working to help myself not get to the end of the year feeling overwhelmed. So the first thing I would say is to do a brain dump of everything you know that needs to get done as well as the conversations you need to have with people in your life. So some important questions to think about:

So we have, depending on what holidays you celebrate and whether you’re going to get together with family, whether you exchange [00:05:00] gifts, whether you buy gifts for everybody, whether nobody buys gift. It’s going to depend on what you do, but you need to be able to figure out what are all the things that need to get done and who do you need to talk to about what’s going to happen?

So are you going to travel? Are you going to see family? Are you going to stay where you’re at and who do you need to talk to about that? What are all the things that you are going to need to get done in the next several weeks? Do you have Christmas parties coming up and do you have any responsibilities for those parties?

Are you hosting anything? Do you need to begin preparing food or preparing menu options? Who, if anybody, are you going to buy gifts for? So your immediate family, extended family members. If your spouse is in a unit or a squadron, are you buying gifts for anybody? At [00:06:00] his or her office. Are you doing anything for your friends, your neighbors for, if you have kids, teachers, what are you doing?

Think through all of the people and make a list of everybody that you’re going to be purchasing or making something. Then look at, if you’re going to be decorating, what are you going to be decorating? Do you need any other decorations? What are all of the things that go into your ability to decorate your home or your workplace or your kids’ school classroom?

Whatever it is, what all goes into. Then think through your hosting activities. So if you’re having a meal, if you’re hosting a party, if you’re helping put on a kid’s Christmas party, what are all the things you’re hosting and what needs to happen for that? And then any other events or activities that you’re involved in, get those down.

So now you have a [00:07:00] brain dump of everything that needs to get done. And the conversations you need to have with people about those things. Now you can do this all on a piece of paper. My most recent thing that I have fallen in love with. It’s mindmeister.com, which is a mind mapping software. It’s great for just putting all these things into one big mindmap or brain dump, and then it all lives in one place.

So if I write it down on a piece of paper, then I might lose that piece of paper. And then I go looking for it, versus I know exactly where my mind map lives, as long as I have internet access. So right now I may not be able to access my map, but I do love this. It’s completely free for your first three maps.

It’s M I N D M E I S T E R. Dot. If you’re interested, but there’s, I’m sure lots of different software, you can use, but either put it [00:08:00] on paper or do it in some kind of mind mapping software, but get everything out of your brain because if we’re just constantly, oh, I think of one thing, I write it down and then tomorrow I think of something else and I write it down and then I have like 10 different pieces of paper or 10 different notebooks.

And I can’t find everything I need at one place. So get it all out, get it into one place. Now we’re going to make a timeline of what needs to happen and when, and the earlier we start to work on this the better. So if you can, the wonderful thing about this is that once you have this all down, you can return to it year after year after year, and start to improve upon your list.

Create a better system. And every year I can start a little bit earlier last year. Moving to Guam, forced me to start thinking through all of this earlier, because it takes so long to ship anything here. Now I know this year, [00:09:00] shipping’s going to be crazy for everybody everywhere, but this is really what forced me to start thinking through things earlier.

I know it’s already late November, so if you’re just getting started on this now, that’s okay. You’ll have this. And you’ll be able to start even earlier next year, preparing for things so that you can move things along in a time frame that doesn’t feel overly. Step two is to sketch out your timeline. What will you work on when? What needs to happen? What do you have? What time do you have on a weekly basis to make progress on these? Try to do a few things every week so that you don’t wind up a couple of weeks before Christmas feeling completely overwhelmed. 

I know growing up, my dad was notorious for doing all of his shopping on Christmas Eve, and then we all got whatever he had last minute time to find that was available at the store. So it was [00:10:00]always an adventure with my dad, but you know, as much as we can, the more that we can front load activities and work on things in advance, we will get less overwhelmed as we get closer to the events. Now you’ve created your timeline, what needs to happen on a weekly basis so that you are making progress towards those goals without the overwhelm.

Now it’s time to take action. You’re going to set up your weekly calendar, your weekly schedule, and carve out time in your schedule to work on these activities. If you don’t set aside the time to do it, it won’t get done. So you have to say, okay, I have a block of time here on Tuesday, and I can spend two hours working on things on my list so that I’m making progress.

I’m getting things checked off the list. So we’re taking action on a weekly basis. The fourth step is to give yourself grace because as [00:11:00] much as we prepare and we plan. Life happens. There is not been a month or a week yet where something unexpected didn’t come and mess up my schedule, my plans. And so the more that I have been intentional with setting my weekly schedule, the more that I have noticed how many things pop up that disrupt my plan.

Things happen. And we have to have that margin, that space, that understanding that something’s going to go wrong. Somebody who’s going to get sick, or my husband’s going to forget something at home that I need to bring to him. Um, my neighbor needs me to help her go pick up her car. You know, there’s just life happens.

This is just a part of being human and life. And we don’t always accomplish everything that we set out to accomplish. And that’s okay. So just give yourself grace. If you are struggling to get everything done, don’t beat yourself up. If you don’t accomplish everything you [00:12:00] plan to that week, every day is a new day.

Every week is a new week and just do what you can with what you have, and then keep. The last thing I would say is what matters most is that you are able to celebrate the season with those you love. If you didn’t get the perfect gift, if you didn’t show up looking like the most organized person at your party, if you know, nothing seems to come together, it’s okay.

Life happens. And what matters most is that you were able to celebrate. The season with those you care about sometimes really what we need is just perspective. So let’s recap this together. Number one, do a brain dump of everything that needs to get done and the conversations you need to have with people.

Number two, make a timeline, sketch out what needs to [00:13:00] happen when, so that you can begin making progress to your goals. Then take action on your plan. Number four, give yourself grace when things don’t go according to. And then number five, remember what matters most is celebrating the season with those you love and care about.

Now, while we’re on the topic of having the best holiday season available to you, I’ll give you my bonus tip for having, ending your year on the right note. This was the first time we did this last year and oh my goodness. It made a huge difference in our whole family’s life. Up until a couple of years ago, we always traveled for Christmas.

We went to go see family. We were trying to get together with everybody. Um, and that just got really difficult to do with small children. And then we ended up having a baby a week before Christmas. And so then we kind of started saying staying home. Life is [00:14:00] still overwhelming with a newborn, but last year, being on the other side of the world, we were not able to travel to go see family during the holidays.

And we made the decision to have a little stay-cation where we just got a hotel. With our whole family and just took a few days to relax, spend time by the pool. And just in the year on our relaxing note, we weren’t trying to get things done. We weren’t working on house projects. We were just enjoying some downtime as a family.

So whether you do a staycation by staying at your home, or whether you’re able to go out and get a cabin somewhere or go stay at a hotel or just have a little family. That doesn’t feel stressful, that doesn’t feel like you’re trying to do all the things for everyone else so that you can end the year on a relaxing note and you can start a new year fresh, just [00:15:00] consider if you could change up your plans so that you end the year on a positive note, on a relaxing note on a family centric note and get ready to launch into 2022. 

Oh my gosh. It’s hard to believe it’s almost here, but we are right at the cusp of the end of the year and we want to have a great 2020. Now speaking of 2022, I want to just remind you, if you have been on the fence about jumping into the milspouse, purpose playbook now is a great time to do so because you can begin to set the vision to get clear on what you want, how you want to pursue purpose in 202. If you will set your foundation now and get clear on the vision for your life, what it looks like for you to pursue a contribution that matters, that aligns with your sweet spot and how you want to show up. [00:16:00] Then when we get to January, you are going to be at a great place to start pursuing those big goals, pursuing your dreams and making 2022 your best year ever. 

So if you’ve been on the fence about it, head over to morethanamilspouse.com to get started, and I would love to see you jump inside the course. If that is not for you right now, that is absolutely okay. I understand. And I am going to do my best to support you with where you are right now and how we learn to thrive, get unstuck and craft lives of purpose, regardless of what.

So the best thing that you can do for me to be able to help you craft a life with purpose today is to send me a message and let me know where you’re struggling, what you are trying to navigate in this season and what we can talk about too. Get unstuck and live lives with purpose to find fulfillment [00:17:00]and to live with more purpose, more joy, more impact in our daily life so that we don’t feel like we’re wasting our lives.

We don’t feel like we’re not showing up as. That we’re meant to be. We feel out of alignment, we feel overwhelmed and I want to help us break free from that. So send me a message. Let me know what you’d like us to talk about and how we can encourage and support each other on our journey. I hope you found this information helpful in super practical.

I would love for you to hop into our Facebook group and share what you find most overwhelming about the holidays. And then find someone else like you can encourage or offer a piece of advice, something that has worked for you and your family. And we can, uh, encourage and equip each other to have the best holiday season and end the year on a great note [00:18:00] so that we can step into 2022, ready to set some growth goals and pursue lives of purpose today so that we can live with less overwhelm, more peace, more purpose, more joy, and more fulfillment in our daily life. I hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving weekend. I will see you next week until then, may you live filled, fueled and full of joy. 

Hey friend, before you go, the milspouse mastermind community is here to help you thrive as a military spouse, figure out what lights your heart on fire and equip you to create a life of impact. You can have an incredible impact simply by heading over to iTunes, to subscribe and leave a review. And if today’s episode was meaningful to you, I know it will be for others. Spread the word by taking a screenshot of this episode and share it to your stories so we can continue to reach more people change [00:19:00] more lives and shift the way that military spouses look at life, because we are better together and together we can change the world.

Let’s do it.