This is the time of year when holiday madness begins to kick in.

Managers push their teams, sometimes to the brink of exhaustion and beyond, to reach year-end goals. Families push each other to create the perfect holiday experience. And we push ourselves toward unattainable expectations. And this ALL happens simultaneously in the month of December. No wonder it’s called “Holiday Madness”!

It’s that point in time where you realize three things:

• You should be finishing all those projects you had planned for the year…before December 31.
• You should be planning for next year…before December 31.
• You should be executing the ethereal Norman Rockwell holiday…which falls between now and December 31.

And so you push…hard. You push yourself and everyone around you.

The result?

The result is not MORE productivity and better results. Instead, it is stress, exhaustion, and a boatload of guilt.

Why?

Because beneath all those “should’s” is one word: PERFECTION.
I am here to give you permission to release the perfection.

Let’s look again at the list with “less than perfect” expectations. What if you reframed your thinking to something like this?

1. I will finish these three projects by December 31: ______________________________, _________________________________, and ________________________________.

2. I don’t have time to plan my entire upcoming year. Instead, I will decide on ONE thing to focus on the first month of the new year.Then ask yourself, “What ONE thing can I change that will have the most impact on my life?” Break that one thing down and write down your first step.  _____________________________________________________________

THAT is your New Year’s resolution. ONE thing.

This may sound simplistic, but if you did just one meaningful thing each month next year, where would you be at the end of the year? I dare you to try it.

For one massively successful business leader, doing just one thing each month for a year led her down an entirely different life path and into a business that now serves millions all over the world.

3. For the record, I’m betting even Norman Rockwell didn’t have a Norman Rockwell holiday every year. Decide to settle for simple. If you don’t know how to cook, now is not the time to take a cooking class. Call the caterer instead. If you plan to make customized homemade gifts for everyone on your list of a hundred people and you haven’t started yet, it’s not going to happen. Streamline your gift list and think of simpler ways to give…or just invite your friends over for a great catered meal and memories that will last a lifetime.

And so I wish for you an imperfect holiday that is the start to an imperfect (but very impactful) new year!