Dr. John A. King breaks holiday gatherings into 45-minute blocks and suggests a signaling system with your partner to escape uncomfortable conversations. Set an exit plan, keep busy with small tasks, and enlist allies like a spouse or sibling to help you manage expectations and actually enjoy the time.
Morning all. I had great response from a video, a very brief video I posted yesterday about the holiday period and dealing with it. So I thought I'd just take a little more time and talk about managing expectations at this time. And that is the key, is managing expectations, the expectations of others and the expectations you have of yourself. So when you come into Thanksgiving or you come into the holiday period, be aware of Your internal hesitancy, and that's— that self-awareness is the start for self-improvement. So if you're aware that you're going in and you're hesitant with some of these things that are coming up, then that's a great key for you to identify and say, well, I need a strategy. So here's just a couple of thoughts. Limit your time, your exposure at any particular event. I found that an hour and a half is manageable for me. It gives me time to get in there to do the meet and greet, If it's sitting down and having supper, lunch, whatever it is, presents at Christmas time, then you can get up and go somewhere. So I always go with the exit plan. So that's number one, and set those expectations. Tell people, man, really looking forward to it. I can come from here to here and manage that accordingly. And then I break it down into 45-minute blocks. First 45 minutes is going to be the meet and greet and milling around. Then there's normally the eating. So now we're sitting up to around 90 minutes. And then I come into a phase where I might give myself half an hour or so to exit out of it. So I'm looking at an hour and a half. I'm looking for 2 hours. I'm starting to gracefully leave the situation to go and do whatever the next thing is that I have to do. Now people will be disappointed, but what they won't be disappointed is that it's not going to escalate or, you know, turn into a bit of a poo fight with different people and a tense time for you. So that's number 1, is manage those expectations. And number 2 is manage your time. Number 3 is seek out allies. If you're going with a partner or you've got a family member that you're particularly connected with, it might be your nephews and nieces, it might be a brother or a sister, it might be a spouse that you're taking with you. Work out with those group of people either beforehand or just in your own head what you can do. Oh hey, I'm gonna take the kids for a walk. Or hey, I'm just going outside and have a smoke or a drink or something like that. Or I just need to go for a walk and get a breath of fresh air. They're little things that you can do to place within those events so that you can do it. Sometimes I get up and go to the kitchen and help washing dishes or cleaning plates or getting service things. Always keeping myself busy because I don't want to be caught in a difficult conversation or in a situation that could just exacerbate my lack of desire with being there or having a challenge with the crowds or having to sit around or drinking too much or whatever it is. So I try and get an ally to do it. The other thing— excuse me— is with Melissa when we go in there— I've got to have a drink of water. Sorry about that. The cigar was good this morning, but the coffee was a bit rough. I talked with Melissa about, okay, look, if a certain phrase or something that just— or a tap on the hand, it's normally a tap on the hand or a tap on the leg— that just means I'm finding a particular conversation going in a particular direction that I'm uncomfortable with. And she'll step in and she'll help Take the conversation another way, or she'll answer some questions, or she'll just get involved with me in that. And we often keep track of each other at those events so that I can give her a look, ask her to come over. Hey babe, why don't you come over here just for a minute? And she gets involved in it. And that's a great strategy for couples, is— and it's not a weakness, it's actually a sign of strength that you're aware of what you're facing and you're also putting in place things to manage it. So there's just a couple of thoughts. I go into that extensively in my book Deal With It in managing those sorts of things because that is a key part of being able to negotiate life, negotiate staff meetings, negotiate working with staff, working with other people. And I want to encourage you, if you haven't read Deal With It, to get hold of it, get a copy for it, and go through it with your wife. Highlight things. with your husband and talk about the things that you can do together to improve the quality of your life together. Have a great holiday, have an exceptional holiday period, and reach out if you need to chat. Cheers. Cheers.
