82 The Invisible Load of the Holidays Why You’re Exhausted Before December Even Starts

Welcome to the Great Leader, Great Mom podcast, where we trade in mom guilt and burnout for courage, calm, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, engineer, turn life coach, mom of three, and founder of the School of Courage. Here we talk about leading at work. at home without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself. If you're ready to drop the guilt and grow your courage, you're in the right place. Well welcome to episode 82, The Invisible Load of the Holidays. why you're exhausted before December even starts. If you're already tired this December one and you can't pinpoint exactly why. This could be because your mental browser has 178 things open and this episode is for you. So let's talk about what's really happening behind the scenes in your brain to lead you to this mental exhaustion. Every single year I notice something fascinating. The calendar says it's the week after Thanksgiving But emotionally, most women that I work with are already in mid-December burnout. It's that moment when you realize you haven't hung a single light You haven't wrapped a single gift. Maybe you haven't even purchased a single gift on Black Friday. You haven't attended a single end-of-year school event. But somehow you feel like you've run an emotional marathon. Why? Because long before the holiday quote unquote fun begins, women are already quietly carrying the entire project planned in their heads for the holidays. You may look calm on the outside, but inside you're tracking who needs gifts, including the cousins and the aunts and the neighbors and the teachers. You're looking at how much to budget. When is the school play or musical going to be? What days are the early releases? Who gets out when? Who's allergic to what? What day are you cooking for the whole family? What's the travel schedule? What's the family dynamic or the seating chart that needs to happen? all the emotional labor, the traditions you feel responsible to uphold that have been like gilted down to you, and maybe the pressure to make it all so magical This load feels invisible. And I love the movie Bad Moms where this like really embraces all of it. We're not gonna go to that extreme, but um Maybe that'll make you laugh. If you need a good movie to watch this holidays, check that one out. Don't watch it with your children. Okay, so why do we women carry the holiday mental load Honestly, I think women are by default the perfect holiday project managers. I think we put ourselves in this place of project manager for the holidays. I think we enjoy it because I think it's fun to see other people's smiles and delight But I think we overdo it and we get so burned out. Culturally, it seems like the holidays are women's responsibility to make everything beautiful, to cook all the amazing maybe traditional family meals to bring joy, to wrap all the presents, to make everything look so beautiful and organized and make sure you know where the stockings are and you do all the the gifts for the stockings and the gifts under the tree and timing it right to take everything to the school for the teachers, you're potentially responsible for making the holiday magical And yet where you find yourself is stressed and feeling like a mess, feeling imperfect. I think for a lot of us, this is essentially running a second full-time job. So here's the part that drains you the most the emotional labor. And while the task matter, it's the emotional labor that really takes this toll on women. During the holidays, you're managing everybody's expectations, everybody's feelings, everybody's schedules, everybody's reactions. Everyone's disappointments, everyone's desires and traditions. You're protecting people from being hurt. You're trying to smooth over all the awkward dynamics across families. You're keeping the peace between the relatives. You're remembering who needs extra attention. What do you need to remember about what they did this year or their injury or their ailment? Whatever it is. You're trying to make sure no one feels left out. And the whole time you're managing your own internal world, your own guilt and pressure and worry about forgetting something, the fear of letting people down. The comparison, the perfectionism, the resentment, the exhaustion. Women, we just don't carry list. We carry the emotional responsibility for the entire season. And A lot of this is self-inflicted. Let's even talk about the aspect of school towards this time of the year. And if you have kids, you'll know that December is so in the center of the universe for children. There's The teachers gifts, the class parties, the early release days, the school performances, the teacher conferences squeezed in somehow, the wear holiday socks or wear a stupid holiday shirt, which As many of you know, they can't wear the one from last year. So you have to buy a new one every year that they wear for like a week and then you what donate it the next month? You have to do last-minute donations for things There's just this endless demand on our energy and on our emotions this time of year. And a lot of times the women pick all this up. And that is so exhausting I don't even think we realize all the burdens that we take on. So you might not say these three things out loud, but I think these three hidden beliefs make the load even heavier for us. First, if I don't do it, it won't get done. When you think that thought, that feels awful. I don't know about you, but it just feels this overwhelming pressure. And then from that, the way I would show up with that thought is overly perfectionism, trying to control everybody, being kind of manic and crazy. And then what would end up happening is not only would I probably not get it all done, but I would be more burned out and miserable. Nobody's gonna want to be around me. The second potential thought you might be thinking this holiday season is I'm responsible for everybody's happiness. And it may not be as clearly stated in your mind like that, but We women are trained to be emotional caregivers, and this holiday really amplifies this tenfold where we're the ones that know where things are. We're the ones that bring in all the traditions. We take care of the gifts. We do all of it, right? So often. The third thought that could be causing you suffering this season is I want my kids to have beautiful memories. And so it's on me. And that feels so burdensome because moms feel responsible for creating magic, even when it cost us our peace and our own disappointing of ourselves So this is why you're exhausted before December starts. It's because you've been planning, anticipating, tracking, organizing, worrying, holding, smoothing, remembering, performing. making meaning, creating magic all mentally behind the scenes before anything even happens. You're not exhausted because you're weak or you can't handle it. You're exhausted because you're carrying two holiday seasons The one everyone experiences and the one you're managing in your own mind. So how do we lighten this invisible load? These tools are so powerful for women like you. First, let's decide what actually matters. Ask yourself, if I could only do five things this holiday season, what would they be and why? You'll be shocked at how many things fall away. How many extra trips to the store you just decide you don't need to take or things you need to buy that just aren't real? You can just drop it. The second thing is choose the emotion you want to feel and to create this holiday. So instead of choosing a holiday theme, why don't you choose an emotion? Say you want to create peace or joy or amusement and fun for your family or love. Or just pure delight. Let that emotion drive all your decisions. So when something comes up and you need to make a decision, ask yourself what leads everyone to feeling more delight? And if it doesn't lead them that way, then you don't have to do it. Number three, stop owning everyone else's experience. Your job is not to prevent disappointment, to manage reactions To guarantee happiness, to smooth every conflict, to wrap every gift perfectly. You don't have to perform to this holiday perfection that we'll see in magazines and places Your job is to show up grounded and intentional. You need to let every single person be responsible for their own feelings. You're responsible for yours. Let them have theirs. Number four, delegate without micromanaging. Hand off a task without redoing it for them when you don't like the way it was done. Don't fix them, don't supervise, and don't own the emotional outcome for whoever is there helping. Let things be done imperfectly. Let it be done their way. I imagine the magazine crew is not coming to your house to photograph everything and make it look perfect. Just let it go. It's not worth your happiness. Number five, release the holiday performance standard. Ask yourself, what is the holiday I actually want? Not the one I think I'm supposed to create. or the one that shows off and let that guide you this season. In the end here, know that you're not behind this holiday season. It's only the beginning of December. And you're not failing. You're not unorganized. You're not doing it wrong. You're simply a woman who has been carrying the invisible emotional load mental load and logistical load the entire season. And you were never meant to do it alone. And frankly, so much of it just doesn't matter. Try to create that feeling that you really intentionally want to create this season. Drop the holiday performing and choose to be present this holiday to love on the people you love most. and to create joy or delight or amusement for the people around you. This will have everything become lighter and more enjoyable and you will not feel so exhausted. If this episode resonates for you and you're craving a calm, grounded holiday seven, not a perfect one, join the School of Courage membership Inside, you're gonna learn how to reset your nervous system, your brain when it freaks out and it wants to react. You're gonna learn how to be present in any situation, to be confident and courageous. And unlock your potential no matter whether at work or at home. You deserve a holiday. That feels peaceful and real Not one that's performative and gonna leave you exhausted. So with that everyone, I'll see you next week. Take care everybody