This article is about discipline during the holiday season.
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The holiday season is full of fun and Christmas cheer, but it is the time with the highest likelihood of you falling off. Picture this, You have worked hard all year to take care of yourself and eat nutritious food.
Suddenly, the waft of your Grandma’s best cake recipe drifts through your senses. You look around and your whole family is indulging themselves.
What do you do?
No one wants to be the odd one out, but you also don’t want to jeopardize all of the hard work that you’ve put into eating better food.
This is one of the many dilemmas that people may face during the holiday season.
This article will give you ideas and tips to help you maintain your goals during the tough times and to help you thrive during this season.
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What do discipline and the holiday season have to do with each other?
I think discipline and the holiday season have everything to do with each other.
The holiday season is probably the season when you experience the widest variety of intense emotions. Joy, sorrow, gluttony, gratitude, etc. are all wrapped up in this time of year.
Having discipline during the holiday season will keep you steady and remind you of the boundaries that you have set for yourself.
The concept of a “cheat meal” is already dangerous, but this experience is exacerbated by the time of year when we celebrate.
All of the temptations seemingly come out at once and you may choose to be less strict than would have if the circumstances have been more normal.
Discipline during the holiday season is extremely important because it will determine the outcome of your year and set the tone for your next year.
How many years have begun in shame because of the poor decisions we made in the previous one?
If we want different and better results, we are going to have to make different and better choices. The first step to making better choices is practicing discipline during the holiday season of the previous year.
Discipline during the holiday season
1| Indulgent time of year (keep your goals in mind)
The first challenge to consider when evaluating the holidays at the end of the year is the indulgence.
This time of year is often the time for ‘cheating’.
You have been good all year, why not treat yourself
The problem with this is that many people do not know how to let something good stay as a treat. These ‘treats’ that are meant to be a one-time thing, are often the return of a bad habit.
A great way to have discipline during the holiday season is to evaluate your goals beforehand so that they are fresh on your mind.
Some goals that you may have been working towards all year are:
- Not eating sweets
- Buying sustainable clothing only from reputable resources
- Praying everyday
- Going for a walk several times a week
- Not eating fast food
Making your goals a priority at the end of the year can keep your progress fresh and help you make more productive decisions.
Keeping your goals top of mind during this time of year will also help you to blow your progress. You will have a much better chance of seeing your journey through if you can withstand the indulgence.
2| Be Prepared (don’t procrastinate)
You know your limitations better than anyone else. If you can predict your points of weakness, you can increase the chances of you being successful during the holiday season.
You must maintain the same discipline during the holiday season that you’ve been practicing all year to reach your goals.
Here is an interesting article to help you with your procrastination during the holiday season.
Being prepared is a great way to practice discipline during the holiday season because you can anticipate the things that may trigger you to do a bad habit.
The holiday season is also a time that welcomes procrastination.
If you have found yourself reading this article, you have probably been through a few holiday seasons and you know the things that you are highly likely to put off until the last minute.
3| Continue your schedule (pre-film / pre-create)
If you are in the content-making world, you are probably aware of the concept of pre-filming. Most content is not made in real-time and someone did the work before it was published to keep the continuity.
If you post content as you make it, it is more difficult to take breaks or go on any trip because there would be avoid in your content.
The same goes for the holiday season. Consistency is a skill and you have to build it over time. A holiday season is an easy place for you to skip a day or miss a deadline that you have set for yourself.
You practice discipline during the holiday season through preparation. By preparing beforehand, you maintain consistency and your work-life balance.
If you liked this post, you’ll love these:
- Starting from Zero | Best Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
- How to Stop Overthinking and Take Back Control of Your Life
- How to show yourself love on Valentine’s Day
4| Quality over quantity
The holidays is a time of year to be thoughtful and express your love and appreciation for other people.
A cool way to have discipline through the holiday season is to be intentional about what you give and the people that you give it to.
Christmas day is famous for the gifts aspect of it and people can get wrapped up in the giving of presents to compensate for other areas where they fall short.
It may be tempting to get a child everything they request on their list because it is a special holiday, but if you set parameters beforehand regarding your budget or how the children would earn the gifts, you must stick to them,
I know that I don’t have to tell you that the holidays are about more than a number, but it can be easy to forget when you are going done the aisles of your favorite store looking to burn money.
5| Have a plan
The absolute best way to maintain your discipline during the holiday season is to have a plan going into it.
If you have no plan, then you are subject to the whims of advertisements, other people, and capitalism. None of these things guarantee that your boundaries are respected.
Discipline during the holiday season can come in the form of setting and enforcing boundaries for yourself.
Having a plan about what you want to do or spend will give you peace of mind and reassurance that you are making good decisions.
You don’t want to be thrown into the tornado that is the holiday season and get stuck doing your accounting in the new year.
Conclusion
These are some top tips to get you to keep discipline during the holiday season. This time of year can be exhausting and using these tips will keep you level-headed and reduce your frustration.
How will you use these tips to have discipline during the holiday season?