The Good Enough Holiday Season

Deepak Chopra talks about The Law of Least Effort in his book “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.” The idea is of economy of effort-of doing less things and actually accomplishing more.  He talks about observing nature and using this an example of how to live our lives. He says that grass doesn’t try to grow, it just does. That birds don’t try to fly, they just do.

How can we apply this to ourselves, during the crazy business of the holiday season? What if we just let ourselves be? What if we took the pressure off of ourselves to do more, to buy more, to decorate more, to be happier more…

I encourage my clients to state this mantra every day, during the holidays: “I have done a good enough job. I don’t have to be perfect.” Now, there are those who may tell you that your good enough is NOT actually good enough at all. They may ask why you don’t have more ornaments on your tree? Why you didn’t make the homemade dish, rather than buying it pre-made or why you didn’t wrap a present in the “right” way?

In response to statements like this, I encourage folks to take a deep breath and realize that someone else’s expectations of you are truly their concern, not yours. It is absolutely ok to define for yourself what your personal “good enough” means to you. It will be different for everyone and there is no right or wrong definition of this.  An easy way to tell that you have hit your “good enough” mark is that you feel satisfied with what you have done, but you don’t feel stressed, overwhelmed, resentful, angry or sad. Once you cross over into those emotions, you are most likely acting from a place of what you “should” do, not from a place of “I have done a good enough job.”

So, as we enter this holiday season, please remember to do lots of self-care and to let yourself take a break from all that doing.