The Tightrope Season

 
 

How to protect your practice during the holidays

Trying to maintain your practice during the holidays can feel like walking a tightrope.
 
 

Between family commitments, social plans, and preparations, your practice can easily fall by the wayside.

 

That’s when you’re most likely to “fall off the wagon”

No other time of the year threatens our practice habit as much as the holidays.

Not even the spring daylight savings time change, when we lose an hour.
 

Why are the holidays so dangerous to our practice?

Because we’re busy!

We have presents to buy, decorations to put up, parties to plan…
With more demands on our time, we’re more tempted to skip a day of practice.
 

And when we skip practice, we lose momentum.

Every day that we don’t show up makes it harder to show up tomorrow.
And when we lose momentum, we undermine our habit.
 

But we also need to be able to take a break.

It’s perfectly reasonable to take a “vacation day” (or several) to celebrate.
Holidays are supposed to be break from your normal routine.
 

If we don’t take breaks to rest and enjoy life, we’ll get burned out.

And burn-out is a bigger threat to your practice than missing a couple of days.
 
The trick is to find a balance.
 

How can I protect my practice, and still enjoy the holidays?

The key is to make a plan.

If you decide which days you’re going to take off in advance, you’ll miss fewer days.

When you’re busy and stressed out is NOT the time to ask “should I practice today?”

That’s because your inner toddler is going to be the one answering.
(“I don’t waaaaaannnnnaaaa!”)

You’ll make much better decisions now, when you’re calm and have some perspective.

So for each day during the holiday season, decide whether you want to:

• Do your regular practice
• Show up for a quick token practice (just to maintain the habit of showing up)
• Don’t practice at all (treat it like a vacation day)

 

Treat different days differently

The “holiday season” isn’t just holiday days and regular days.
So remember to take all of these into account:
 

1) The actual holidays
These are the days you’re actually celebrating the holiday.
 
2) Prep days
These are days that aren’t holidays themselves, but you’ll be busy preparing for them. For example, you might spend the day before your holiday cleaning, decorating, wrapping presents, baking cookies…
(Don’t underestimate these!)
 
3) Travel days
If you’re not celebrating at home, you’ll have some days that are primarily devoted to travel.
 
4) Days when you have guests
If you’re going to have house guests during the holidays, or are hosting a party (on a non-holiday day), you’re going to be more busy than usual.
 
5) Days when you are a guest
If you’re staying with family or friends or in a hotel, your opportunities to practice will be different. Luckily, skipping practice has much less impact when you’re not in your usual environment, since you don’t encounter your usual cues.
 

Be clear on when “normal life” resumes

Make a decision about when you will return to your regular routine.

Maybe that’s:

• The first day (or workday) after the holiday.
• The day after you return from your trip, if you were traveling.
• After you’ve taken an extra day to rest and recover.

The most important thing is to be very clear about the date (put it on your calendar!), and to make sure you really do show up.
 

Underestimate Yourself

Making your plan now is critical, but it can also tempt you to bite off more than you can chew.

So be realistic.

If you know you’re going to busy on prep days, cut yourself some slack and plan for a token practice.

If you think you might resent practicing on the actual holiday, just take it as a vacation day.
 

Here’s My Holiday Plan:

On the actual holidays, I don’t practice.

This year, that’s:

• Christmas Eve (we celebrate Polish Wygilia on the 24th)
• Christmas Day
• New Year’s Eve (bad movies, pizza and champagne with my college friends)
• New Year’s Day (I stay in my PJs, do a big clean-out, and plan for 2017)

 

On prep days, I do a normal practice.

That helps keep a sense of normalcy, and keeps stress at bay. That said, I usually take it a little easier on prep days.
 

On travel days, I don’t practice.

Unless we’re leaving later in the day, and then I do a normal practice.
 

If I have guests, I do a token practice.

Or sometimes a longer one, if I need some alone time…
 

If I am a guest, I usually don’t practice.

Since I’m operating on someone else’s schedule, I take a full vacation day.
 

Summary

The holidays are when we’re most likely to “fall of the wagon” with our practice.

Because we’re busy and legitimately need some days off to enjoy the holiday, we risk losing momentum.

To protect your practice, make a plan in advance. Decide which days you’ll do your regular practice, just a token practice, or not practice at all.

Decide when you will resume your normal schedule, and stick to that decision!

So no matter how many things you have to juggle, you’ll have a safety net in place to protect your practice.

 

Next Steps

Make your plan:

• What days will you practice on?
• What days will be a token practice?
• When will you resume your normal routine?

 

Your Turn

What holidays are you celebrating this season?

What is your practice plan for the holidays?

Do you have any tips to share about practicing during the holidays?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

 
 

p.s. Are you having trouble practicing consistently?

If you’ve been stuck in a “feast or famine” cycle, or have given up on practicing all together, check out my online course, How to Build a Sustainable Practice Habit.

You’ll learn how to make practice a steady, consistent part of your life.

The course begins Monday, January 9th, so check it out now.