The Challenges of the Season: Learning to Manage Our Mentality

The Challenges of the Season: Learning to Manage Our Mentality

Few things test our patience more than the holiday season. 

We can all visualize wading through multitudes of fellow last-minute shoppers to snag our Thanksgiving bird or a gift. Then we have to make sure our aunt from who-knows-where is picked up from the airport at 4:00 AM, and that our entire extended family and their new boyfriends, girlfriends, and babies will all fit comfortably in our disproportionately-sized home, all while getting along perfectly with our under-socialized dogs.

Gathering friends and family under one roof is a joyful experience, but one that also brings opportunities for succumbing to stress. The key to overcoming stressors and maintaining our composure is having healthy internal motivation.

Internal motivation is a mindset that drives movement. These movements, or actions, come from your own sense of self—who you believe you are—and what you find important.

There are many ways healthy internal motivation helps us feel strength, security, and peace during the holidays, instead of overwhelm and stress. Here are the main points to keep in mind as you’re planning your holidays.

Your New To-Do List

Know Yourself

If you know yourself and what you value, you’ll know your limits and non-negotiables. It can be helpful to sit down and give this some thought, and even write out the things that are most important to you during this time.

Connect to Your Resources

Build a healthy internal environment by meeting your own needs, such as nutrition and sufficient sleep. It can be tempting to sacrifice these things in pursuit of tasks that seem more pressing, but if you value your personal health, consider how keeping health as a priority can help you make better decisions. 

Prioritize Time and Energy

Self-awareness of personal trends helps you take on only what you can manage and what furthers your goals, and helps you decide when to push on the gas or the brake! For example, if there’s a task that takes a lot of time or energy, but you realize it’s actually low priority for you, you can cheerfully move it to the bottom of the list, or remove it completely.

Create Your Own Bubble

Be particular about who you spend time with and what you let into your mind and body. Most people and events during this busy time of year are a little stressed and frantic. If that’s not the kind of energy you want, you might have to be extra selective.

What You’ll Gain

Keeping track of your internal motivation and focusing on these suggestions can yield great results. These are just a few of the positive outcomes you’ll notice as you orchestrate a holiday season that is in line with what you value.

Control of Self and Emotions 

As a result of the prior steps, there will be an increased sense of internal peace and success. 

External Validation

Your internal environment will transform your external environment, and others will notice! You’ll have better energy, greater confidence, be more attractive, etc.

Improved Presence

When a healthy internal motivation produces your own healthy external environment, the internal and external are aligned, and you can be present in the face of surprising or difficult situations and overcome stressors and triggers.

All of this hard work can also save you effort and frustration in the future. Once you start letting healthy internal motivation guide your priorities, it becomes a cycle and feeds into itself, strengthening your self-identity, values, boundary-setting, etc. Using these principles produces more and more internal and external success, which improves your ability to prioritize what you let into your life, and to know which actions are worth spending time and energy on.

Achieve Healthy Internal Motivation

Ready to dig deep into what makes you tick? 

Let's chat about your values and beliefs—the roadmap of your life. Meet with me during my free office hours on Facebook every 2nd and 4th Saturday at 11 AM MST. 

Bring any questions about personal growth and well-being you might have so you can get the support you need for your ongoing journey of self-development!