I had a wonderful couple of weeks with my family. All of my kids play music instruments. I attended a beautiful Christmas recital with my daughter; an always outstanding high school Christmas music concert with my son; a fun school non-politically correct music program with my youngest son, who had a singing solo, and lastly I get to hear my son and daughter at their school band Christmas concert.

We also had a very enchanting trip walking through with my son’s friends and several adults in our Botantical gardens outdoor Christmas  Illuminations event with my youngest son’s scouting troop. I attended Christmas caroling to the homebound through our historic, Norman Rockwell, neighborhood with my daughter’s girls’ club group. Our family participated in the Advent Angel program, giving and receiving weekly Advents gifts from families in the parish.

I got to attend two adult Christmas parties. And I was in charge of organizing the Bless the Baby Jesus event at our church. My son and his friends got to participate in the mass and all of the K4J (Kids for Jesus) families helped to organize a blessing and receptions where all of the young children in the parish had their Baby Jesus from their Nativity set blessed by the priest in a private, kid-friendly ceremony.

On top of that I’ve been juggling year-end doctors appointments, like my own personal lab work and several appointments to have my son’s braces removed. And we are still awaiting the fix up of the hand-me-down car so my 16-year-old can drive again.  In the meantime, without his help I’ve subtracted another at least productive hour from my day.

Yikes!

All of this activity has affected my regular hours at work, and I’m behind on a couple of deadlines. I’m feeling the stress from the crunch!

So, yes, I totally get the pressure everyone, particularly entrepreneurs feel at this time of year.  

Lots of people feel so overloaded this time of year that they toss everything to the wind.

It’s one thing if you work for someone else, but as an entrepreneur doing that can be lethal for your business. You end up losing two months of productivity by entering into January at basically a dead stop.

Don’t do that!

By following these three tips you learn another way to approach the holidays that leaves you,your health, your relationships healthy and thriving:

1. GET RID OF THE ALL OR NOTHING THINKING – What a lot of people do is throw up their hands, feel out of control with the extra demands and commitments, overindulge in sweets and fattening foods, skip their workouts, and start putting their business into hibernation mode because they feel like everyone else is blowing theirs off too.
   
   Reject that! You can be fully present and attend to the key tasks in your business. You can conduct a little business, but what’s really important is you can use this time to reflect on the past year, clarify where you want to head and put real measures in place for a great 2018. Get rid of all or nothing thinking by not throwing everything out, but cut back if you need to.
2. KICK UP YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS – Look at what you have, discern it with God, accomplish as much as possible, and when it is time to be present for your family and friends, totally let go of work.
3. COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS AND SOLICIT THEIR HELP- When you are meeting the needs of yourself – getting enough sleep, staying somewhat on your routine, trying to eat as healthy as possible and allowing some indulgements but don’t overindulge–and your loved ones, they really are willing to help. For example, I have tried to keep my relationships with my kids a priority, even though I’ve had less time with them directly due to commitments and fitting my work in when I can. But because their needs are being met and they really can tell that they are a priority in my life, they are much more willing to pitch in with regular chores, etc.

   Definitely get of the track of being supermom. Don’t enable others to be takers and not givers.  My kids were fine with not putting the full effort into preparing weekly gifts for our Advent Angels and just let Mom do it, while receiving fun gifts each week until I put a clear stop to that.

   Solicit the family help and cooperation. Because we are all of the same page we were able to tack a quick but good family photo for our Christmas cards in about 15 minutes and decorate our home in another 30 minute stint.

4. YOU CAN LIVE UP TO THE HIGHER STANDARDS AND EXPERIENCE TRUE SUCCESS – A key strategy of the evil one is to make you think you really can’t live up to the higher standards God has for us by making us feel overwhelmed and have poor boundaries so we over-commit and give up. Totally reject that view and ask God for guidance on exactly what to do each moment and where to put your attention.

You will be much stronger for it, because prioritizing people over things really gives you the energy to attend to your emotional, spiritual, and material needs better.

This is exactly why I am having my first annual live  “Manfiesting Mixer” on Friday, January 5, 2018 from 6-9pm and my virtual version on Saturday, January 6th.  I help you understand how to have clarity about what you deeply desire, fully organize you and your life towards achieving it and your vision, and give you the secrets and tools you need for a full personal and business retreat day that will make 2018 your best manifesting year possible.   To take advantage of this valuable gift for active clients your next step is to schedule a Manifesting Your Vision session with me by going to www.talkwithchristina.com 

Christian Entrepreneur Biz and Life Tip:  Recognize that to keep up with the pace of certian times of the year, like Christmastime, you have to sharpen your focus and operate at a faster speed. But by building in rejunation times within your day and during other seasons, you can be fully presnet for the people you love and rock your business into 2018!