“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” I can still hear Andy William’s voice in my head as he sings this old classic.

And it is. The holidays can be a great time . . . except when it’s not. The stress, the strains of relationships, balancing work and family . . . it often is “the most stressful time of the year.”

So here are a few brief tips to help you, professionally and personally, get through it all.

Five Tips to Survive the Holidays

Control what you can. Focus on your “scheme”—what decisions you can make to get through this—not the “dream” that the hard things will suddenly be easy or go away. The pressure of a deadline, the demands of the end of the year at work and family obligations—the hard things will probably still be hard—but you can make decisions about how to manage them. Focus on what you can do not what is out of your control.
Create, or be, a boundary. A correlarry of #1 , , , many times stress comes from not being willing to create, sustain, and enforcing your own boundaries. Talking to the boss about having reasonable expectations, setting limits on the hours you work, or insisting that family members respect your choices isn’t easy. But creating clear, firm, yet flexible boundaries as needed can help manage stress in the long run. (See work post on Good Fences or family post on Reclaiming Relationships)
If you are overwhelmed, find ways to focus on grounding yourself in the present. The goal is to be in the “here and now” not the “then and there” of the past or future. Too often our “anxious brain” tries to sort out how to fix the past or the future while our “calm brain,” if we could access it, knows that there is nothing that we can do today to change either one. Being overwhelmed is a physiological state that can be moderated through practicing techniques that will allow better willingness to be in the present moment, accept all of your experience—positive and negative—and be more able to engage with the calm mind.
Create space. Again, this relates to the earlier items in terms of control and boundaries. The idea is to simply, slow down. Take a break. Do something that is only for resting and relaxing. The temptation is always there to work harder, skip lunch, take on one more thing . . . and many of us can do this and still perform well. But at what cost? When those that do not create space complete a project they “had to do” . . . do they feel satisfied? No. Often they simply move on and begin to feel the stress and anxiety of the next project. Creating space often, to their surprise, does not take away from what they accomplish and makes the effort more satisfying.
Focus on being grateful. Remember that much of the stress in our lives comes from the vary things that, from a different vantage point, are blessings. The stress of having a job rather than being unemployed. The demands of gift giving, hosting celebrations, the tensions or relationships, are experienced by those whose have been given “much” and who have important others in their lives to share it with during this season. Even in the midst of the toughest seasons of life,* there are things to be grateful for . . . if you will look for them.

Okay, I’ll stop there. Hope these five reminders help you this holiday season. I’ll end by wishing you, as Andy might have, the “hap- happiest season of all!”

* As an example, the year 1992 was my low. That year my younger brother was killed. I was approaching the holiday season with a significant amount of dread about what it would be like trying to “survive” it without him. While it was a hard season, I came through it realizing a couple of important lessons on gratitude. First, that the pain was in part because I had been blessed to have the relationship I enjoyed with my brother; and Second, having my wife, my children, and family around me, gave me plenty of opportunities to recognize the blessings I had even with the loss of my brother.

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