From Exhaustion to Enjoyment: Rethink Holiday Hosting

Today’s episode is about the complexities of hosting. Listen in on my live coaching workshop- “Rethink Hosting”.  Discover why hosting isn’t just one big task but a series of small, nuanced steps. Whether you’re organizing a big holiday dinner or simply gathering friends for a movie night, hosting is complex. 

Intentional planning, prepping, and recovering from events is key.  Learn practical strategies for managing your time and energy throughout the season. Learn and practice delegating, omitting, and rethinking traditions to create more harmony and joy. 

The episode will encourage you to identify what truly lights you up (and what leaves you drained), set realistic expectations for yourself, and give yourself permission to do things differently this year.

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program

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Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts, 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. Today we're going to be talking about how to rethink hosting. As every season comes to an end, we take a few moments, to think about what we want. Every seasonal sprint starts with a power thought. The power thought for the last season, which was the fall, was I can create the results I want by managing my time and my energy". This next season coming up is the season of the holidays. Do you want harmony this holiday? Which means are you okay with some people thinking and feeling and doing life differently than you? So we're going to notice today the nuance of what happens during the holiday, specifically around hosting. So hosting might be having people at your house for a meal. It may just be you are bringing people to your house and then you're going off and doing something. I know, I'm looking forward to going to see the movie Wicked with some of my friends. It's still hosting to have everybody connect at your space and make sure people have the car ride they need. So we're going to notice the nuance of hosting today. So when you think about the holidays and you think about hosting, what do you notice? And what we really want you to leave with today is the understanding that it's definitely not one thing. Hosting is not one thing. There's going to be lots of different steps, and so we hope that today's time helps you begin the process, but you're going to need whatever works for you. A Trello board, a Google doc, a notebook where you can keep track of the information and be able to highlight on repeat. What is your goal? So I know none of us want to enter the end of January and say, I'm so sick. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so frustrated because I gave all my energy out. I think we want to have peace. I think we want to be in aligned energy. I want to be enthusiastic and full of joy. So you want to notice today, what do you want specifically around hosting? We're going to use this tool for hosting, but yesterday on my podcast, I recorded a podcast with a financial therapist. And she uses very similar tools that we're going to be talking about in a moment with finances. So how we do one thing is how we do everything. So I think what you're going to learn today, you can apply to any area of your life. So we use this metaphor a lot. If you were going to run a marathon, you would need to prepare, run the marathon, and then recover. That's the thoughts that we want to have on repeat as we go into the holiday. Do you need to prepare? Do you need to do something? Do you need to recover? So when you think about hosting, I want you to see there's two pages here. There's so many pieces to hosting. So before you even do anything, you have to think about the day, the time, the people, the menu. When are you going to shop? Do you have to make anything in advance? Do you have to put the food away? Are you going to clean your house? Are you going to decorate? Are you going to prepare rooms? Are guests coming? Do you need to even prepare more than just a room? Do you have games and activities? Favors and dishes and utensils. Have you started thinking about what you would prepare five days out, four days out, three days out? There's a lot of nuance as you start to go through here. So realize there's lots and lots of little tiny practice steps to something called hosting an event. On the day of, what do you need? Well, you need good energy because there's going to be people in your space. You need physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy to be greeting people and making sure you have a place. If they have a coat, getting them a drink, preparing the food while they're still here, sitting down, enjoying your meal, and then all of the cleanup. What we want to do every time we have a pivot, right? We're in one season and it pivots to the next season. Before we step into the season, we want to take a moment and rethink. On purpose. What do I want to think on purpose? How does that make me feel? Does it make me want to do the things I want to do? Or am I feeling an aversion and I don't want to do the things? So we're hosting as an example, but you can use this with any area of your life. You're moving, you're cleaning a space, you're going to put activities by type. As best you can. This is what we do with our brain. We take all the information that's in our mind and we put it down somewhere we can talk about it and then use the voice app. We can take out a journal and write it down. But here with activities for hosting, we said there's things you need to think about with your house, with your food, with the people, and the time and energy you need to plan and get ready so we have it all written out for you so you can just use the workbook to move you through and create the results you want. What we do every time we use one of these rethink activities is we think about the fact that there are things we do that give us energy. There are things we do that are fine and we might even be competent in them. And then there are things we do that exhaust us. So if you were to use the chart below and say, with the next activity at your home, a birthday party, having some friends over for lunch hosting Thanksgiving, what do you love? What do you like? What do you dislike and what do you detest? What is something that just sucks the life out of you? If you can begin to notice that, we want you to start with what is hard, what is unpleasant, what is exhausting? What takes your energy? Then you want to think, is there any way somebody can help me with this? Maybe you want to delegate it, you want to pay somebody to do it, you want to decide. Not this year one, we don't take the time to think things through. We accidentally use energy sometimes doing things for people that they can and should do for themselves. Sometimes we use energy doing things on repeat and not realizing we don't even want to do that anymore. So let's use our time with this specific activity to notice what we want, what we don't want, what's working, and what could we do differently. So here are some thoughts, and if they don't feel true, they don't feel aligned, add the words. It's possible to the beginning. So say you're deciding, okay, for Thanksgiving, I want to have my family over, but I don't want them over in the morning. I want to have some quiet time by myself. want to watch the parade, whatever. I want people to come at one and have dinner at four, you're making a decision. Where we get in trouble is we expect other people to have aligned feelings around our decisions and we need to let them have their human experience. They can think thoughts that bring joy, they can think thoughts that make them frustrated. We're not responsible for their thoughts and feelings. We are going to take all of our energy and keep it where we have the impact. What do I want to think on repeat? How does that make me feel? Does it move me towards the results I want? So here's a thought. It's possible I can change some of the expectations I have of myself around hosting this year. It's possible I could change the expectations I have of myself. It's possible I don't have to do it the same every year. It's possible I could omit things or delegate them. It's possible that not everything has to be homemade. It's possible that I could change the timing of my tasks so they don't overwhelm me. So that means giving ourselves more time to say, what would we do this week, next week? It's possible that the people I love and the people that I want to host can think, feel, and choose anything they want. I never knew this. I spent so much of my energy trying to help people have feelings they didn't want to have. So let them keep their thoughts and feelings. Stay in your box with the things you can control, your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. So the goal for today is for you to choose a power thought for the upcoming season. What do you want to think on repeat next? What are some tasks you'd like to delegate? Now, the reason to delegate delegate some tasks is that you're realizing you don't have unlimited energy. And so if you're not feeling abundant in flow, maybe letting someone else do one or two things would give you back the energy you need to stay in your aligned, peaceful energy. So can you decide today, here's something I'm going to delegate. Can you decide there's something that you want to omit just for this year? Just see how it works. And then finally, could you take some time and decide what you'd like to do after this event is over so that you can rest and recover? To go back to the Boston Marathon, metaphor before the event you prepare. That's what we're doing today. We're thinking through what we want to think on, repeat what we want to do, then you're going to have the activity and it's important to you. That's why we're doing it. It's important to you. And then we want to say, what are my tools? What's my toolbox to rest and recover when it's over? Hopefully you rethink the hosting that's coming up this season and stay in the aligned energy you want to stay in. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage 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 tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.