Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum. We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com. Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. When this episode drops, there will be nineteen days left in 2022. Nineteen. That's it. I don't know about you, but this is the busiest time of the year for me, and it is also the time that just goes the fastest. If you're feeling stressed or short on time, let me tell you, I am right there with you. But today, I'm gonna share my secrets with you about how I do it all, holiday edition, so that you can get it all done too. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and I wanna know, how are you gonna get it all done in these nineteen days? That's only four hundred and fifty six hours. Twenty seven thousand three hundred and sixty minutes. And if you're prioritizing your rest, which you should be, a hundred and fifty two of those, you should be sleeping, which means you only have three hundred and four awake hours left in the year. And I don't know about you, but I've got a lot going on before now and when that ball drops for 2023. I've got a trip to Texas for my growth and development. I will fill y'all in on that one soon. We have our annual family mountain trip, which is one of my favorite times, but it also takes me away from the house and kinda removes me from the hustle and the bustle. Y'all know I'm still working my chief people job, doing all the chief people y things, and I'm balancing all of the extras that come with this time of year. Now y'all know what I'm talking about. Gift shopping, gift shipping, ugh, UPS, gift wrapping, holiday parties, company holiday parties, neighborhood holiday parties, making the food for the holiday parties. If y'all are doing family pictures, finding the outfits, planning the meals, going to all the kid events, trying to remember what days your kids have school, what days they don't have school, gifts for your teachers, gifts for your neighbors, gifts for your friends, gifts for your in laws, gifts, gifts, gifts. Oh, and let's not forget, every night, you gotta move that goddamn else. And I don't know about you, but just talking about that list has me exhausted. If you go back to episode 39 on how I do it all, you hear, spoiler alert, that I don't do it all. I simply can't. I don't. So now I wanna tell you about how I don't do it all holiday edition. Step one, y'all, I don't do teacher gifts. I know I'm gonna get some hate on that. People are gonna say, but they do so much in a year. They're underappreciated. Yes. I agree with all of that, but I just don't. I if I feel so compelled and I have the time, I may do some gift cards. Everyone loves some money, especially your teachers. So if you feel like you cannot not give them a present, Quit trying to make all these Pinterest worthy coffee mugs. They already have enough coffee mugs. Just give these underpaid teachers some gift cards. I also do not make food for the holiday parties. If one of my kids gotta sign me up for bringing something to school, they better hustle and bustle their behinds to get to the sign up sheet so that I can sign up for something like paper products. You simply can't go wrong with some paper products. I also do not do holiday cards. And I remember this was a big one for me because I just had this overwhelming feeling that it was an expectation that I had to do. Right? I would get twenty five, fifty cards in the mail, and I couldn't get it together to put together a little holiday card, get them all printed up, find everybody's address, write it all out, and get them out. I it was just such a stressor for me that I finally decided I just wasn't gonna do it. And I even got hate from a family member one time. They literally called me, and they said I was upset that I didn't get a holiday card this year. And I said, excuse me. Nobody got a holiday card. So I had to set some boundaries real clear that it's just something I don't do. There's nothing appealing about it to me. I found no joy, only stress in doing that. And when I decided to let that go, oh my gosh. It just opened up so many doors for me. I also don't do complicated gifts, and I try to really limit the amount of gifts. So we don't do them for the adults in my family. We do them for the kids, all the nieces, all the nephews, and we love doing that. The magic of the holiday season is just all about the kids anyways. So we stopped doing gifts for the adults several years ago, and that really helps with my stress. I don't have to worry if somebody is going to like what I give them, if they already have what I give them. I don't have to spend hours stressing about what I should or should not get them. And I will tell you this. I know some of you are saying, yeah. Well, that doesn't work for me. Right? I've got people in my life that just expect gifts. Some people, their love language is giving and receiving gifts, and I get that because I do have a few of those in my life, and I will do gifts for those peoples. So here's my kind of thought process through that. You have two options for people like this. Number one, you can set boundaries like I did for the holiday cards. Full disclosure, there are some people I just give gifts to, so that doesn't really work. Or you can suck it up and buy the dang gift. Again, I've got some of those people in life. No matter what, a gift is kind of expected. And for me, I found that it's easier to just go with the flow, not create a disruption during the holidays, and just do the gifts for them. If it's their love language and it's important, I make it happen. I do not put things off, and I don't make it difficult for myself by doing that. So when I get that notice coming home from the school that there's a Secret Santa, immediately, I get on Amazon, and I order that gift. As soon as the Secret Santa at work comes through, I immediately go to Amazon right there. Because if I don't, that flyer is gonna sit on the counter, and I'm gonna forget about it until 02:00 in the morning when I'm gonna wake up super stressed, not remembering if I did it, how long is it gonna take to get here. Now I don't have enough time. Now I have to make an extra trip to the dollar store. So boom. I don't put things off. And I know that's kind of a reverse psychology here. It's one of the things that I don't do, but really I'm doing. But it's so important to just tackle it when it comes through the door, but make it easier on yourself and use Amazon. Now I will tell you what I do practice during this holiday season. I do focus on quality over quantity. I make the time for the cookies for Santa with my kids, and I am fully invested and present when I do. I make time to read the holiday books and set traditions that are important to my family. I also make time for me. I am important during this season. I deserve rest. I deserve to enjoy the holiday season, so I make sure to still set that time aside for me. I also really try to keep my workouts going and flowing. Instead of going all in, though, I try to slow it down a bit. You know? So sometimes I'll sit by the fire reading my book with my bathrobe, sipping my cinnamon tea, and staring at the beautiful tree that I spent hours decorating with the white lights and the decorating with the white lights and the ornaments that we've collected over the years. I do participate in that damn elf on the shelf, y'all. You mamas that didn't sign up for this and said, no way. You're probably smarter than I am, but I enjoy the surprise and the joy on my face my kids' faces in the morning when I see them hunting for whatever mischief that elf got into. And I'll tell you, that elf is probably the most stressful part of the holiday season for me Because literally every night, my mind is racing. Did I move it? Did my husband move it? I also stay home more. I make an intentional effort to not go to all the parties, but only to go to the ones that bring me the most joy and the most connection because I enjoy being at home. I practice self care. Hot baths with Epsom salts and bubbles and a good old book are my go to. But sometimes it's a holiday movie with my kids snuggled up in my bed and my dog at my feet. When I really start to feel that hectic pace creep in, I remind myself that it is about the quality of the time I spend, not the quantity of the things that I do, the parties that I go to, the presents that I wrap. I don't have time to do all the things, and I don't have to be everything to everyone. So let me repeat that. You don't have to be everything to everyone. For me to be stress free in these final days, nineteen days, four hundred and fifty six hours, twenty seven thousand three hundred and sixty minutes. I do not do all the things. I do enough. That is it. I'm the one that gets to determine what enough is. You need to be dialed into your gut and how you're feeling. Only you can know what is enough for you and your family. You get to control that. But for God's sakes, if you're listening to me and it's nighttime, please go move that goddamn elf. If you liked this episode, it would be amazing if you would rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast. It really gives the Now to Next podcast social proof and credibility so that other women who are struggling with the same things can hear it. You will literally be helping other women join the ranks, join the now to next tribe so that they can bust through the glass ceiling. I hope y'all have a great holiday season.