Full Episode Transcript

Dr. Ashley Blackington:

Hello and welcome back to the AND/BOTH podcast. I am here solo this week. This is an episode that is scheduled to come out on Black Friday, so day after Thanksgiving. I have been the beginning stages of all of the holiday planning and prepping and therefore so is my social media feed and so is everything, commercials, all of that. I am... deep in the kids making a new Christmas list all the time, kind of time of year. And so what I wanted to do today was to come on with my three points for the holidays. And really this is, I guess the pep talk that I wish that I had to listen to. And so I wanted to put it out there and talk a little bit about it because I think that it is important, especially as the holiday magic makers that typically boils down to moms, that we don't overlook ourselves and the space and what is going on around us. 

So there's three points that I want to talk about. I think that it is helpful to sort of frame it in that way because otherwise it's just me rambling on and on. And solo episodes are, I'm still getting used to the podcast idea. I'd much rather have somebody in here to talk. So maybe I'll have a co-podcaster at some point in time, but for now it is me. So the three big things that I want to remember for myself and remind myself of, and you may take them if you would like. And if not... also fine too because as we'll get into. 

First

Putting yourself on the list for, not like the gift list, but putting yourself on the list in terms of between now and the end of the year, between now and like, you know, the rest of your life. But specifically focusing on the holidays of having opportunities in there for you, whether it is to do something for yourself, to do something by yourself. to do something that you want to do for the express purpose of you want to do it, I think is really important. I think that a lot of times, as I was saying, being the people that handle a lot of the logistics around the holiday season, it's really easy to go, and you end up at the finish line of the holidays, so to speak, and you're like, well, that was... That was a lot of work and like I didn't get a chance to enjoy this, this and this a bit because I was planning, preparing for the next thing. I wish that I had a chance to do any number of things. 

So remembering that when it comes to the holiday season, that it's also your holiday. And that doesn't mean that can be whatever it wants to be. Like I don't, I, hate the idea of Gepkuff coming on and saying, you should, you should, because we'll get to that in the second point. But remember that it's your holiday, too. And that can mean sitting on the couch hanging out with kids. That can mean sitting on the couch reading a book doing not a dang thing. Whatever it is, I think it's important to weave the pieces of you and what you need in order to feel like you have experienced this holiday as well in there. I mean, I believe very, very strongly in this to the point of trying to launch podcasts out into the world so that people can hear conversations of other people that are doing it and the strategies and all of the things that go into that. 

I love the idea of, you know, when you go through and you're talking about the activities that you wanna do as a family or the activities that you wanna do. for the kids or the activities that you wanna do, whatever it is that you take a step back and make sure that there is a piece of you in there. And that is, that's a vote in the whole big spectrum because yes, a lot of the holidays, we do revolve around our kids and we do revolve around memories that we want them to have and share and things like that. But also remembering that They also wanna spend time with you too. And if you're running around and trying to go from here, there and everywhere that the opportunity to sit, the opportunity to be with them, the opportunity to slow everything down, don't let that pass by. And I know that it's much easier said than done, and it's gonna look different for everybody, but keeping that in mind as you look ahead to the next. Bonanza that is the next six weeks. 

Second

The second point and probably my favorite, well, I mean, my second favorite, which is why it's number two on the list, is “should” activities, should in quotes, the activities that revolve around doing the things for the express purpose of doing the things. This is something that I think that before, when my kids were really, really young, before COVID, we got swept into this, you know, the go and do a couple of different Christmas activities. We celebrate Christmas in my house. So Christmas themed activities. And these were activities that were one was like You get on a bus at the Children's Museum in another town, and then you take the bus to a farm where Santa greets you and reads a story and things like that. And like, we were doing that, and we were also going to see Santa when they lit a tree at a hotel in town. And we were going to, we were just sort of going to do all these activities that were kind of like all sort of related. And when COVID happened and we didn't do any activities because they didn't have any of these activities. It was a really good pause to be like, well, do we need to go see five different ways of seeing Santa or do we need to just pick one or two and see what happens? Like not see what happens, but like just pick one or two because really it seemed like some of these things that we were going to do. was more about going to do things because other people were going to do things and not necessarily because that was the driving force. 

So like my kids love the Polar Express. The Polar Express, there's a place in Maine, in Portland, Maine, they do the Maine Narrow Gauge railroad. They do a Polar Express that my kids absolutely love. It's very sweet. It's not two hours away where you're driving, you know. There's definitely some big polar express type productions where it's, you know, you go up there and you stay in a hotel because you're up there late because you have to go ride the polar express at night and things like that. And the logistics behind trying to get four kids coordinated for that, the animals at my house that would need to be cared for and all of that, it's just like huge production, right? So. We started going to the one in Maine because it's only an hour away. It is super sweet and it's super simple. And, you know, they don't go, we don't go do the big polar express, but that's just like the logistics of that are a nightmare. And it would in effect negate, for me and my husband, it would negate the benefits of going to do this, of the like... being able to have the magic of all of it because it would just be so cumbersome to get there. 

So, you know, it's easy to get swept in the marketing of all of the things that you need to be doing in order to be doing the bestest, mostest for the holiday season, but sticking to what works. You know, so when we started going back and doing activities, it was activities that, like, we all really wanted to do. instead of saying, okay, when the kids get bigger and bigger and bigger, we're going to go and do the other Polar Express. They don't want to do it. They want to do the smaller one. They want to do the one that they've known. They want to go and do those. Do we get on a bus and drive all over to go see Santa at a tree farm somewhere? No, we do not. Because really, honestly, we did that because we were going with other families who were going to do that. And it just became about how many similarly themed things can we go do in this period of time. But like it was late, you know, the kids did not really love it, did not really get it. They wanted to just hang out with their friends. And it's like, well, why don't we just hang out with our friends and not do this? You know, this, this is not an essential, an essential situation. 

So it's that over and over again, trying to think about like, What do you want to do versus what are you being told that you should want to do in order to have the best holiday ever? Because really, the holidays are about spending time with your family. And if you're spending time with your family and bogged down in all these logistics and trying to make all of these things happen, but the process of making all of these things happen actually makes the whole thing not fun. probably worthwhile to think about getting rid of that activity because that's not filling the bucket. That's not doing your family the service that they all want. And who wants to have that like, oh, I remember when I was a kid and we had to go do this and like, I hate it going to do this, but we had to go do this. You don't need that. The holidays are about spending time with your family. 

Third

Then the third is the... It seems like what happens is October happens, you have Halloween, there's like a big lead up to Halloween, where I live Halloween is a big deal. And then there is Thanksgiving kind of like gets totally run over because people start putting up Christmas decorations or like Christmas is in Target in October. And so when that happens, you know, people are naturally starting to think more along those lines But what happens is that you get into Christmas and then the next thing after Christmas is New Year's. You know, like people, you think like, okay, the holidays, the end of the year, there's the end of the year wrap-ups, there's all of that. And then you get into the new you and everyone, you know, you push things off to the next year. And that's, I think, when things start getting tricky because that's when you get into that. New year, new you sales approach. 

This is something that I definitely struggle with as someone that has a planning company and a planning related company is that this is a big time of year if you are selling a dated planner because you wanna sell the planner before the planner starts because you want, people don't wanna buy a planner in February if it starts in January. Um, so there's that big sales push. And I've noticed over the last couple of years that people, you know, we all, we all know what's going on, right? So like, if I go online and I'm like, this is, this is the planner for 2024. And you, you like, this is what it's available. I cannot for the life of me, um, get to the point where I'm saying, you know, the new year, new you. I cannot get my head wrapped around the idea of like trying to tell somebody that everything is gonna be like wrapped up in a bow as a sales strategy for the purpose of that. 

I think this is where, this is where the idea of like a podcast versus a blog. came about because it's really hard to put that into words what it's really about. And it's really about trying to implement the strategies and the systems that people need year round versus the, you know, everyone buys a gym membership in January and then stops going the third week of January. And it's that, that like, what is it called? That temporary change or that. that temporary, like, you have 365 days to a new you and new yada yada. Like, I mean, I like me and I like me where I am now. And do I want to have a few more things ironed out? Yes. But as soon as somebody comes on and they're like, you could change your whole life in one year if you just do this, and this, it becomes about... Like as soon as I feel like someone is trying to sell to me by saying like everything is wrong right now. That's when I'm like, thank you, thank you, no thank you. 

I want tools that are gonna help me be able to do the thing that I wanna do and do the things that I wanna do and set the priorities and things like that. I don't want tools because like it's more of that, like I'm a hot mess. Like I'm not a hot mess, I just, I'm busy and I have a lot of things going on, but it doesn't mean that like I'm doing a bad job because my plate is very full. It just means my plate is very full, so therefore I need the tools. in order to tackle all of the things on the plate. So inherently the holidays are, it seems like the messaging that comes across on the holidays is, you know, do all the things for all the people, do all of the things, and then you did all of the things for all the people. Now there's still stuff that's wrong. So buy all of these things, and then next year we won't do this. 

But, I don't know anyone that's going out and do all of that. They do all the things, they make all the memories, they buy the thing, they yada yada. And then the next year they're like, “oh wow, my life changed.” We are creatures of habit. We are people that do lots of repetitive tasks, especially in parenting, we do a lot of repetitive tasks. And so the idea is not... that you're going to, I think about it like, when they talk about like turning a boat around in the water, like if you have like a freighter, like a freight ship, cargo ship, like the one that got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, like that boat doesn't turn on a dime. And a jet ski can turn on a dime, I mean, if you don't flip yourself off of it. 

We as human beings, and especially human beings, who are moms, who are responsible for a lot of other things that go on our plate as well, we are cargo ships. A single person is a jet ski. A single person with no dependents, with no, you know, you have a job, you have an apartment, you have a house, whatever it is, like you're a jet ski. But once you become a cargo ship, you're not gonna be able to implement things in a way that work like a light switch. Like you're not all of a sudden gonna be able to be like, “okay, now I have solved all of these problems.” 

What that means is, if you are being sold strategies and you're being sold things that like are supposed to just black and white change everything and you try to implement them and they don't work in a black and white try to change everything, it's not because there's something wrong with you or you have, you know, poor capabilities to follow through or all of that stuff. It's because you have a lot going on, that you have to make a one degree shift. You can't make 180 degree shift. And that, I think that's a better way to look at it and a healthier outlook. It's like, if you have 365 days. between now and the next holiday season, the goal is not to have 180 degree change. Maybe the goal is to have a 10 degree change, but giving yourself those 12 months to make a 10 degree change so that when you carry on after the next year, you make another 12 degree change and it's just gonna take more time. 

Maybe as your kids grow up, as they become more independent. as life goes on, you actually are able to become more jet-ski-ish than cargo, and you can make bigger changes. And that's what happens. When people say, when you look at the world of influencers and things like that, when you get into, especially with moms, you go on social media and you have a... you have a baby and go on social media and there's other people who are like, Oh, I never sleep and Oh, I never do this. And, uh, you know, everything is really hard. And then all of a sudden it, it seems like all of a sudden those people have like, they have it all figured out and they've got like, uh, you know, uh, affiliate marketing with like leggings and shakes and shapewear and all of that stuff. And they've just like, got it going on, but they don't show. that shift that happens when they get the time back, when they are moving forward, when they are able to like have the opportunity to implement things because they're not underwater. 

So this is a little bit of a blend of probably what could be two episodes, but I think it's important to connect the dots here when it comes to the message that gets put out, as well as the layer of the holiday season too. So as we are all moving into this time of year, I just wanna say again, like I say at the end of every newsletter, you are doing a great frigging job. You are doing the best you can with the time, the resources, the energy, the attention. All of that stuff that I wholeheartedly believe that you're doing the best job that you possibly can with what you have going on right now. That I want you to remember to put yourself on the list. I want you to remember to do the things that fill your bucket and not do the things that don't fill your bucket or that dump your bucket. A great book, by the way. And that this idea around this time of year of like, you're gonna have a completely different life next year, maybe. But that's not necessarily the goal, right? 

The goal is to have incremental change and incremental progress. So as you move into the madness, that is the end of 2023 and the holiday season, I want you to remember that you're doing a great friggin’ job. We will be back next week with another episode. uh, with another mom. Uh, we'll have a couple of solo episodes coming up, but I hope to see you or I hope to have you tuned back in and hear more. And we have some really, really cool people coming down the line. So again, I hope your turkey was delicious. I hope that you have a wonderful leftover, um, turkey sandwich. I hope there's pie. I hope nobody ate all the whipped cream and I hope that you Remember that you are an essential piece of the puzzle and that being an essential piece of the puzzle means you need to take care of that piece as well and whatever that means for you. So thank you and I will see you next week.