Holiday Power Thoughts

I've heard many people say thoughts like “I can't wait for the holiday to be over."

Are you one of them?  Is that what you WANT to be thinking on repeat? 

Did you know that it’s optional to have any thoughton repeat? 

Our thoughts have a significant impact on our feelings and actions AND shape our experiences.  Deciding in advance what power thought YOU want driving all of your feelings, decisions, and actions this holiday season can truly transform the season for you. 

It’s a practice that can serve you all year long! 

Main points: 

• Notice your expectations that are driving your feelings and behavior- bring them to the light.  Some you may not even have been aware of!
• Notice what thoughts you’ve been having on repeat about the holiday season (maybe even unconsciously).
• Resist trying to change other people’s thoughts, feelings, or actions.  You have zero agency there. You are only in charge of YOURS.
• Decide new power thoughts to replace unhelpful or unrealistic expectations and thoughts.
• Choose one to start practicing using, and repeat it as many times as necessary until it becomes an automatic thought that serves you well, moving you towards the feelings and actions you desire for your holiday season and your whole life. 

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program

Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Kibbitz, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Welcome hey friends, this week on the podcast, we're going to be talking about the importance of having a power thought for the holiday season. I don't know what season of the year you'll be listening I think a power thought for every season can be powerful. Let's think today about what holiday thought You would like on repeat. It's so easy to go into any season of our life. It could be the time of the year where you're a teacher and the report cards are due. And you're not paying attention. And every day you sit down to do the report cards. You have to think of positive things for each of your students and inspiring ways to share with the parents, what the strengths and weaknesses the child is experiencing are. And I remember how hard that was. And for me, that was just exhausting. And so if every time I sat down, I thought this is exhausting. Immediately my body's going to feel that I'm not going to want to do this work. And so deciding in advance, a powerful, true thought. Now we do not want to be gaslighting ourselves and putting on thoughts that we don't really believe we want to check in with our expectations and notice, are these thoughts serving us or is this what I want on repeat? I've shared many times that before I was a life coach, I was a pastor. And I really do find a lot of my power thoughts in scripture and in the Bible. And. In one chapter of the Bible, it talks about taking your thoughts captive. I think about a garden with a bunch of weeds. In my neighborhood right now, we have two invasive species and for some reason they are so beautiful in the fall. In fact, the local garden store used to sell one of these invasive species because it looked so pretty in the garden. It was this bright red in the fall, totally invasive, would get all over the place, could wreck a tree. So those are not the thoughts we want on repeat. We want the kind of thoughts that help us align our expectations and create the results that are important to us. And if you are a woman, if you're a mom, if you're in the nonprofit world, If you're in ministry, you probably know a lot of people who have expectations about the things you're going to say and the work you're going to do. I'm recording this right around the time of the election of 2024. And I know I'm not alone in saying that it's made relationships really hard. People come to conversations with expectations. And so we cannot change anyone else's thoughts, feelings, or actions. And that is frustrating. It can feel overwhelming. You can feel really depleted, but I want to offer you something. There is something you're a hundred percent in charge of. And my life would have been different. If I knew this, learned it only about eight years ago, I'm actually in charge of what I think and the thoughts that I think on repeat are creating the vibrations in my body that move me towards or away from the results I want. And so for this holiday, what do you want to keep on repeat? What's your power thought for the holiday? I'm going to offer you one. I love my people. I love them. They get to keep their thoughts, get to keep their feelings. We can even vote differently, but I love them. And so when I look at them, I'm going to think on purpose, I love you. That's me. My first thought. And sometimes in life, when people show up in aligned energy, they show up in love and we do life a little bit different. People may come up and be curious and say, tell me more about that. I have never yet found somebody who was offered coaching either through me or through somebody else, or someone was offering advice. And if they did not come to the conversation with an open and receptive heart, I've never seen anybody suddenly become open and receptive. When advice is given, when information is shared and someone's not prepared for it, instead of being open and receptive, we tend to be defensive. If you're choosing to listen to this podcast today, you've come with an open and receptive heart. You're maybe open to learning something new, or maybe you just want some time to check in with yourself. If you learn something here and you're in aligned energy, someone that you love might come up to you and say, tell me more about that. But if your decision this holiday is I'm going to show up So that other people think, feel, and do life differently, I'm just here to offer you that's not something I've ever seen happen. Let's keep our expectations aligned with the results that we can create in our life. You can create any result if it's in your model, right? If it's your thought, creating your feelings, creating your actions. And so think about all the moms I knew when I was younger, myself included. And our thought might've been, I want my children to have the most magical Christmas. I want them to just love it. I want them to be so happy all day long. And then the reality is they stayed up too late and they ate a bunch of junk food and they became overwhelmed with all the toys and there was no happiness happening anywhere. That frustration that I felt, Christmas is passing me by and I haven't even enjoyed it. that aggravation, All came from my thoughts. My thoughts were focused on other people. What will they think? What will they feel? And now when I go into the holiday season, I think, What would I like to think? What would I like to feel? And I'm so thankful I found coaching because my children are now adults and last year, two of them weren't even able to be here on Christmas day. That took a lot of thought work and it took a lot of acknowledging of, you know what I'm actually, I'm sad for me and happy for them. That's what bittersweet kind of is. I miss the days that were. And I'm so thrilled to have grown these amazing adults who fly and they experience life the way that they do. I remember being in my twenties. I definitely wanted to spend more time with my friends and my family. And we all love each other and it's beautiful when we're together, but we're still five, six, seven humans in one space. It gets overwhelming. It gets loud. It gets difficult, right? Having a bunch of people share a bathroom or trying to negotiate a food schedule with a bunch of adults can be overwhelming. The reality is during the holiday season, a lot of things can become unpleasant if we don't do the work in advance. Where is our energy going? Is that what we want? If you've ever worked with a financial planner, you know that before a holiday season comes, they often say, Okay, let's look at the budget. Let's look at the finances. Let's not overspend. Let's spend according to the budget that you have. That's what I'm offering you today. There's a budget for your emotional, mental, physical energy. How do you want to spend it? What's your power thought and keep that power thought aligned to where you have the authority to influence it. Don't spend your power thought on other people. I want to make sure that my mother in law really enjoys Christmas is a fast path to having a really unenjoyable holiday season, because what if she comes with the thought, I don't like this. There's nothing we can do to change somebody else's thought. So deciding today, what do you want to think on repeat? What's your power thought? And then giving yourself the time and energy you need to keep realigning to it because life is going to continue to happen. So what happens for many people is we have an unspoken expectation about the holiday. So what if you just took one moment, you could even pause this podcast and say, what are my expectations? If I don't even notice them, it doesn't mean they're not running around in the back there. And unmet expectations cause us a lot of grief and pain and frustration and conflict. You expect this, the person that is sitting right next to you at the table has a different expectation. And if we're not speaking them out loud, we can both be incredibly frustrated over something that we didn't even want in the first place. I think about the weather. That's one of those things that we have no control over. Yet so many people tie, especially in New England, a little bit of snow at Christmas as I'm going to like Christmas a little bit more if there's a little bit of snow. We have no ability to make that happen or not happen. So it's interesting to notice that expectation. Okay, if it happens, it's going to be great, but what could be what's possible that it would still be absolutely wonderful if it's a green Christmas, getting a chance to notice your expectations and then give yourself the time you need to process it and make some new decisions could really serve all of us. So today we're going to try to decide what are the expectations that are driving our behavior. And how can we get in front of it and decide in advance what power thought we want driving all of our decisions this holiday season. So without paying attention, you might have a thought, I need to keep the holiday as it's always been. And that's impossible. Because everything in life changes at a really rapid rate. I even think back to when my girls were little, nobody had a cell phone. Isn't that so interesting? If you went to an event, you had to bring a camera. And if you forgot the camera, there were no pictures. Now there's an abundance of pictures, but then nobody's printing them out and you might not ever see them again. So, what would you like to think about traditions? I'm not here to tell you what is the right or wrong thought. I want you to hold space to find the power thought for yourself. Some of us love adding new things to the mix, and some people find that very overwhelming. They get to keep their thoughts and feelings about life changing or staying the same. The only thing you and I are in charge of is what do we want to think on repeat. As family relationships shift and change and new relationships come in, it's important to have power thoughts. Like this holiday, I want to show up and I want to show up from a place of love for everybody. I want to take time intentionally to write down what it is that I love about the people in my life. I want to think thoughts like, I love you so that the feeling in my body is love. I want to send out blessings and I want to guard my time so that I don't get past my limits with money, with love. Any kind of emotional energy. I want to guard the amount of energy I have, and it doesn't seem to be growing. It seems to be something that I need to manage a little bit less of every single year. And I have a lot of good practices in my life. And yet the way that life is, it's just for me. Maybe you're noticing this too. Something that I noticed the limits to, I can't do something three, four, five nights in a row and have enough physical energy. I need to have some time to recover in between days where I do something fun. So whatever you're noticing, could you take the time this week to decide from a place of love for yourself what you want to think on repeat this holiday season? And the good news is you're in charge. You get to decide what you want to keep as your power thought. And even if you've never done it before, I promise you that just taking a few minutes this year to say, this is what I want. I want to finish the holiday season feeling abundant, feeling aligned. I want to maintain this relationship or I want to grow in my connection in this relationship. I'm willing to hold space for hard conversations or I'm running out of emotional energy. I want to check in and let them know I love them, but I'm not going to have a deep conversation at this time. I'm allowed to say as someone who's 100 percent loved and 100 percent valued, I don't show up for conversations where people dishonor and disrespect me. I send blessings and love your way, but I'm ending this conversation because I want to stay in abundant, aligned energy. And so let's just take a moment and maybe come up with a small toolbox for your emotional energy. Is there music that you can put on? What about movement? Does it help you to go for a walk or do some yoga? Do you get your energy returned to you if you spend some time journaling or connecting with a friend? How about physically? Are there foods that give you energy or take it away? Is it good for you to meal prep, or is this a season you need to buy some pre made meals? Is it good for you to make sure that your home is as clean as can be, or are you ready to maybe put some resources into having somebody help you? And then mentally, are there books or courses or podcasts that energize you? I know for me, that's a big one. If I can get enough input, that's one of my top strengths and strength finders, through books, through podcasts, it energizes me. But other people would find that very depleting. Whatever you're noticing, can you write down two or three things that kind of move you in the direction you want to go? And can you make a decision about what you want to think on repeat? I think the reason I'm so passionate about this is I've heard people say thoughts like I can't wait for the holiday to be over. And the reality is we only get 18, 20, 30 of these with our children if you're a parent like I am. And you don't even get unlimited with other people. We don't even know about tomorrow. So I don't think that's the power thought. I want the holiday to be over. It might be, I want to enjoy this holiday. I love that power thought. I wish I had that as a young mom. I want to enjoy this holiday. I know what I like. I know when I was younger, I used to like to put on a Hallmark show and wrap my gifts. I didn't realize how important it was for me to name that and to do it. You are worthy of a life filled with love and joy. Let's make the decision today about what you want to think on repeat, how you want to feel and what you want to say yes and no to. And if you'd like a community of people to be with you, to cheer you on, to help remind you that you're important. I would love for you to join my coaching circle. We meet once a week for 30 minutes. It's a time for you to both grow and develop some of these tools that I talk about, but it's also to be surrounded by five people, six people that are walking in the same direction to cheer each other on. I think the reason I love group coaching so much is I believe we learn just as much from each other as anybody learns from any of the tools that I share. So if you'd like to learn more about that, you can head over to my Facebook or Instagram. I'm Kelly Tibbetts, life coach, or head over to my website, kellytibbetts. com and set up a one to one call with me. We'll see if there's a way for us to work together and help you create these incredibly important results because what's important to you is important. We'll talk next week. Thank you for joining the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encouraged you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose filled life. And if you'd like to learn more, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly Tibbetts Life Coach, or visit my website, kellytibbetts. com. I look forward to connecting again soon.