Holiday Stress: How to Beat It - Kevin Ward

Hi there, it's Kevin Ward. And happy holidays from all of us at yes Masters Real Estate Success Training, helping you get more yeses and more successes in your business and in your life. And today I want to talk about the one thing that is most likely to ruin or complicate your holidays and to really infect and interfere and mess up your happy holidays. And it's one word, stress. And it gets people, it gets us. Because the holiday, you know, it's supposed to be a time of giving and a time of joy and a time of peace on earth. And it's supposed to be all this cool stuff. And used to, it was a time when the holidays came, everything kind of slowed down, everything kind of shut down. And nowadays it seems like there's more going on than ever before or any other time of the year for some of us. And it's like, oh, my goodness, how do I enjoy the holidays and peace on earth when I'm so stressed out? And so I want to talk about how to deal with the stress of the holidays because I believe that stress is the number one party pooper for the end of the year holidays because there's just so much going on and this. So let's talk about first. Where does the stress come from? And I think it comes from three primary areas for most of us. One is it comes from family, it comes from relationships. It comes from the fact that over the holiday period, over the holidays, we've got to decide who we're going to go spend time with, who we're going to visit, who we're going to see, who's coming to our house, where we're going to their house, arranging all that. People that can't make a decision put everything off to the last minute and go like, well, we haven't decided yet. And that can cause a lot of stress. Also, the time that you spend together with family a lot of times for a lot of people is the conflicts, the conflicts that are going on in relationships, they show up now because you've got to go spend time with some of those people, with that sibling that you've not gotten along well with or you had a fight a couple years ago or last year or last month, and you've never resolved it. And it can also be a time of grief. It can be a time where you're having to deal with the fact that some people that someone or some people that used to be a part of the holidays are no longer with you anymore and because of death or because of divorce or because of you know, whatever kind of changes that have happened, that there's sometimes a sense of emptiness, a sense of loss that you've got to deal with during the holidays. And that can be stressful. Money can be hugely stressful for a lot of reasons. One, for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of real estate agents, these are the slower months of the year. And so you tend to have less money. And yet it tends to be the months where we spend the most money with Christmas, Christmas shopping, and all of that kind of stuff. And it's like, that can be a stress. And the bills that come after the holidays and all of that can be a stress. And I think another thing that can be stressful is just the sheer busyness of the time. Whereas before, it used to not used to be a time, we kind of slowed down, but now it's not like that because we got parties. You've got holiday Christmas shopping, you've got travel, You've a lot of times still have business going on. You still got clients that want stuff, they have demands. And you're having to schedule everything and figure all the stuff out. Time off and days off when you're going to work, and you're having to coordinate where other family members are going to be and all of that stuff. It just, we got, we got. With shows that you want to watch on television and whatever it is, there's just so much stuff going on that we get super busy. And so it's like, how do I fit everything in? Which, again, is a shift from the way I think it probably used to be years ago, back in the 1900s, when things kind of slowed down during the holidays and we took time off and we took time to spend with family. And now we're trying to still do all that while cramming a whole lot of other stuff in and it just goes like crazy. And so what do you do to deal with lower the holiday stress? And I want to just frame it with a simple phrase from years ago as a popular song. And that is you got to stop and smell the roses along the way. And that is you just got to take some time during the holidays to slow down and figure out how to just release all the stress. So I'm going to give you three steps today on how you can release the stress, how you can lower the stress and enjoy your. Your holiday season more. So, number one first step, and this is really, really important, no matter what it is, if you're feeling stressed in the holidays, the first thing you have to do is you have to take control. You have to take control of your own peace of mind, of your own happiness. You got to take control of the situation. And what I mean by that is a couple things. One is the things that cause stress during the holidays, you can control a lot of it. You can control the money part to a large extent. In other words, you just have to set a budget if that's going to be an issue for you. If overspending is, you've got to take control of that. If you've already spent it, you're now you're going, like I'm stressing out. Well, one is deal with what you can deal with now and the rest of it, you got to figure out a plan later. But the one thing not to do is fret about it, to worry about it. Let it ruin your holidays. It's done. Let it go. Deal with it. When the time comes, you got to deal with it. You're going to have to work your tail off to make the money or whatever, to pay the bills and so forth, but don't allow it. Just you got to take control of that. Take control of it here and take control of it here in your pocketbook. Take control of your finances, take control of your family's decisions. And one of the things that you can do that's really, really helpful is sit down with your household. And I believe that your household is where you're most responsible to bring in peace and create peace. And here's how you do it. Sit down with everybody in your household, your family, your husband, your wife, significant other, your kids, whoever's involved that lives in your house with you and say, here's the plan, let's sit down and let's figure out the plan. And then we're going to let everybody else, we'll adapt as we need to to their plans, but we're going to make our decision based on what is best for us and not spend all of my time trying to wait on the what other people are going to do and trying to please everyone else. One of the biggest stressors of the holidays is trying to please everyone, trying to fit into and mold yourself and your family into the expectations of what everybody else wants to do. If you will make some decisions and if you've got a family where nobody can decide what they're going to do or they're pulling at you different directions, then make an agreement within your household and say, okay, here's how we're going to do it this year. Here's how we're going to do it is every other year. We're going to do it this way. Figure out your plan for your family and stop trying to please everyone. And then you let people know, here's what we're doing. If you guys want to fit in with it, great. Now if somebody's made plans and they've invited you and you said yes, you honor your commitments and all of that, but the key is that you take control of your decisions, take control of the situation, so that you can deal, you can channel, and you can relieve the stress on yourself. So number one is take control of the situation. Number two is I want to encourage you to just spend some time reflecting in the holidays. And this is where you just have to constantly, consciously slow down, stop and smell the roses. You got to just spend some time over these holidays just reflecting, thinking about, thinking about the year, thinking about your abundance, thinking about your blessings, thinking about all the great things that are going on in your life and reflecting, reflecting on the things that really matter to you, just to enjoy it. It's a time of the year where we're winding down to the end of the year and getting ready for the new year. Reflect on the wins that you had this year, on the things, the goals and the dreams, the things you're excited about for next year. Just literally spend some time stopping and enjoying. Spend some quiet time. Things get really hectic. Spend a little time in the morning, maybe do a little meditation, Just stop, breathe, enjoy being present in the moment. And then the third thing is simply to enjoy. Just choose joy. Don't choose to live in reaction and constant and being frantic. Choose to just stop and go. Like, I'm just going to enjoy this. Somebody's coming in late for the holidays. They're getting here late for Christmas dinner. We've got us all messed up and everything. I'm just going to enjoy it. I'm going to just enjoy it. If you're traveling, you hate the airports and you hate the crowds and all that. Just go, you know what? I'm just going to enjoy. I'm going to enjoy people watching. I'm going to enjoy just sitting there and doing whatever, figuring out some way just to find joy in the moment and say, I'm just going to enjoy this. I'm going to enjoy letting people go ahead of me in traffic. I'm going to enjoy letting people cut in line just looking at everything and going like, you know what? I'm going to choose inner peace. I'm going to choose abundance. I'm going to choose to be happy in the moment by reflecting, by just taking control of me and saying, it's going to be okay. I'm going to love it. I'm going to have a great time. And maybe this would be a great statement to make for yourself. And that is to say, I'm going to have an amazing holiday. And I will allow no one to ruin my holidays. I will allow no one to to ruin my holidays. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to choose joy. I'm going to choose peace. I'm going to choose relaxation rather than allowing the stress to take you. If you'll do that, it's going to be a happy holiday. And that's what I wish for you. Happy holidays.