Staying On Track During The Holidays
Even though the holidays are going to look different this year, one thing will remain the same: you’re going to want to throw in the towel on all things goal-related and shift the focus from making the most of this year to hitting the ground running next year.
I just have to ask (respectfully, of course), has 2020 taught you nothing?
Let me tell you what my 2020 was supposed to look like. This is the year I was going to take ALL the trips. I had 3 planned between May and June alone, and my husband and I had finally decided to let our kids in on our traveling bug and bring them along to somewhere like Chicago or Los Angeles. (If you’re a parent, you know traveling with kids is basically like taking your daily stress on the road, so hubby and I avoided it until our tiny humans reached stroller and diaper-free age). We were saving to move into a bigger place in our hometown, and I had resigned myself to dreaming of moving to another city someday.
To state the obvious, 2020 had other plans. Instead of traveling, we had to find creative ways to get our kids out of the house while avoiding contact with other humans. Rather than stay in our hometown, we made plans to move to a bigger city and I’m happy to report that we’ve been living in our new place since late July. (Anyone who knows me knows how big of a deal it is for me to get out of the city I spent most of my life in…not that I don’t have fond memories, but man I was so ready to move on).
Ok, Laura, what’s your point?
We don’t know what next year will look like
Of course we hope it will be better. Even the most negative of Nancies is ready for some positivity, but the reality is that we don’t know what to expect in 2021, 2022, or even in the last month of the now-infamous 2020. The future is not guaranteed, and we won’t know what life will be like in January until we get there.
Yes, the holidays are a time to relax, reflect on the year, reconnect with the people you love (even if it means from a distance), but there’s no reason to loosen your grip on the things you still want to accomplish.
Take The Negotiation Out of Your Day
You have a routine. You’ve been sticking to it for a while now and it’s working for you. It’s not perfect, though. There are parts of it that are a struggle for you (like maybe waking up early enough to get a jump-start on what you have to do), so here’s where you take advantage and start to think ehh, this isn’t working. Life is too short to have a schedule anyway. I’m going to do what I want, YOLO-style until after the holidays. Next year, though, maaaaaan next year will be MY year!
No. No, it won’t be. Not with that attitude.
Now is not the time to quit your routine until the new year. Quite the opposite. It’s the time to tighten up and be dictator-level strict about your schedule, or at least the key parts of it. For me, that means a few things:
-Getting 7 hours of sleep every night
-Working out daily
-Staying within 1600 calories on most days (Saturday is a free-for-all, I’m not going to lie to y’all).
-Doing one thing to move me closer to accomplishing the 3 major goals I’m focused on for this season.
Aren’t keys supposed to be simple? Like…shouldn’t you have just one or two?
The keys to your routine are personal to you, and I have more than a couple because that’s just what it takes for me to stay centered and focused. If I loosen the grip on even ONE of these areas, everything else slips right along with it. Now, that’s true for me, but things may look completely different for you. The point is to choose the key things that will keep you on track, and commit to doing them every. single. day.
Leaving room for “maybe” swings the door to YOLO-ville wide open. When I say “take the negotiation out of your day,” I mean that there is zero room for “maybe.” You decide that you WILL do the things that are necessary to keep forward movement towards your goals, and they are considered non-negotiable. This means that you make them happen, no matter what. The best way I’ve found to do that is to schedule my week out ahead of time.
Especially during the holiday season, so many unexpected things can happen, so I make sure that my non-negotiables are taken care of first thing in the morning. That way, the rest of my day can be as unpredictable as it needs to be, but I’ve already taken care of what’s most important to me.
My goal in life is to empower and motivate people to be the best versions of themselves, and I have learned through my own experience that the only way to do that is to be consistent. Show up for yourself daily, especially on the days when you’d rather sleep and eat cookies.
