149: December Permission Slips [From the Private Podcast] — Making Good: Small Business Podcast

Dec 13

Dec 13 149: December Permission Slips [From the Private Podcast]

In today's episode, we're bringing back our favorite holiday season tradition...

Double episodes for all of December! This year, Lauren decided to do something very special. She's going to share four episodes from the private podcast that only members of the Making Good Happen subscription service have access to. We'll be sprinkling these episodes like holiday magic throughout the month, so keep an eye out wherever you get your podcasts for these special episode drops.

Today, we're sharing the private podcast episode from December 8th: December Permission Slips

Links and resources mentioned:

Join Making Good Happen (makinggoodhappen.co)

Transcript Of December 8th Private Podcast Episode:

Welcome back to the members-only Making Good Happen podcast!

I’m your host, Lauren Tilden, and I am SO excited to have you here.

This year, I’ve been extra aware of just how much PRESSURE I’m feeling this time of year.

Pressure to go out on a high note, business-wise.

Pressure to make as much and sell as much as possible.

Pressure to keep my house relatively clean, and decorated for the holidays.

Pressure as a parent to make the holidays memorable and happy and joyful for Casey.

Pressure to not eat my body weight in sweets every week.

Pressure to review this year and think about next year!

Pressure to create family traditions.
Pressure to host for the holidays.

Pressure to DIY every effing decoration in my house.

Pressure to evaluate my life and my work and make a new plan for next year.

Pressure, pressure, pressure.

For some reason right now I have this image in my head of a watermelon and rubber bands. Have you seen these experiments?

Basically, you take a watermelon and you put a watermelon around it like a belt.

A watermelon wearing a single rubber band around the middle - NO PROBLEM. Even a couple of these rubber bands, no problem! But after you pile them on, single rubber band after single rubber band, you start to see the watermelon changing shape, buckling under the pressure of the rubber bands. An indent around the belt of rubber bands forms, getting larger and larger with every single rubber band added, until eventually there’s one rubber band too many.

The watermelon explodes in a glorious but very sad and wasteful fashion, bits of watermelon shell and guts going everywhere and leaving very little to be salvaged.

You have probably caught on to the metaphor I’m making here – that these expectations and pressures we have for ourselves at the end of the year – individually – each one isn’t so bad, but piling one after another one on ourselves – eventually, it all gets to be too much. We may not explode LITERALLY like a watermelon wrapped in rubber bands, but we have other ways. Shutting down. Falling into burn out. Giving it all up. Lashing out. And through all of this, I can tell you that the absolute last thing we’re doing is enjoying the end of the year, enjoying the holidays if we celebrate, enjoying LIFE.

So, in this episode, which I have to say is every bit as much geared toward myself as it is to you, I want to offer us all 14 permission slips. Permission to shed the weight of the expectations and pressure we put on ourselves (and others might put on us, too).

Here you go.

You have permission to change your plan… especially if the plan you initially created is going to create stress and pressure on you at the end of the year.
You have permission to NOT do things that, at the end of the day, don’t matter that much to you.
You have permission to change your mind.
You have permission to make things easy on yourself, whatever that looks like for you.
You have permission to half-ass things.
You have permission to stop holding it in, and tell your partner, family member, friend or fellow MGH member how you’re feeling.
You have permission to disappoint people if their expectations don’t align with what’s right for you.
You have permission to say no to opportunities that might make you money but will take away from the way you want to spend the holidays.
You have permission to decide your own priorities and put those things first.
You have permission to take a break, even if your “to do” list is so long.
You have permission to take a half-day from work, unplanned, and spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching Food Network or reading fiction.
You have permission to leave the 2022 reflections and the 2023 planning to 2023.
You have permission to ask for help.
You have permission to delete things from your To Do list if they simply don’t NEED to happen.