Here Come the Holidays!

Officially, we are in HOLIDAY SEASON! Thanksgiving has come and gone as has Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Do the holidays fill you with anxiety and a whole new round of to-do lists or are you energized by spending more time with family and friends?

Do you find your energy lagging as the days get shorter, the food gets more plentiful, more sugar-y and more tempting?

Yep. The holiday season is in full swing. Why not take advantage of it and swing through it with style, energy, vitality and even stronger relationships?

Think it is not possible? Try these quick tips and see how you feel even by the end of this week.

• Breathe. Several times a day - whether you feel stressed or not - breathe in and out slowly (to the count of 10). Close your eyes if you can. It calms you and energizes you at the same time.
• Drink...water. The air is drier. The alcohol and caffeine are around more. All that spells dehydration...and big energy drains. An extra glass or two of water goes along way. I like mine with lemon and lime!
• Take just a taste of your most favorite food stuffs. That means 1-3 bites. And then stop. And walk away. Far away. Unless you have much better willpower than most people, distance is a great thing and can be your biggest ally.

I know these sound easy and very common. I didn't say that these were groundbreaking nutrional insights. But they are all totally doable - and they really do make a difference.

What is your favorite tip for keeping your energy up during the holidays?

Breathe In, Breathe Out...Ohmmmm

It sounds so simple and yet there are days when simply breathing evenly, slowly, mindfully is a huge task. I think that's true for so many women but especially busy women executives.

I think that's why traditional meditation has always seemed just a bit out of reach for me. (I am sure I have even gotten that "traditional meditation" label in there incorrectly...) Still, I believe that there are so many benefits to quieting and taming my monkey mind that I try to find some type of meditation, guided relaxation, ohm-ing that will work for me.

Here's what I have learned...

• Sitting still for 30 minutes right out of the gate and expecting your inner to-do list to shut down for the whole time is unrealistic. Try FIVE and see if you can do that first.
• All meditation doesn't happen in a lotus position on a mountaintop. It can happen in a comfy chair with a cup of tea, walking around the track at the Y with an affirmation tape or just before you fall asleep. Let go of the perfection of the time and place.
• It takes time to make progress. As much as I'd like immediate, microwave-fast results in my ability to meditate, it just doesn't happen that way. Exercising these new mental muscles is challenging, frustrating and encouraging.

Do you meditate? What practices or tips have worked for you?

Are You Listening to Your Body?

Your days are filled with people who want to talk to you - your spouse or significant other, kids, co-workers, bosses, friends...the list goes on and on. Yet, as you make time to listen to all of them (or try to), you may not be listening to a very important voice: your own.

And your voice may be trying to give you an important message from your body.

Slow down. You can't help everyone else if you are not helping yourself first.

As a busy woman executive, you likely have many sources of potential stress in your life. That makes it even more important that you listen to your body to avoid unhealthy habits which can make you even more stressed and less patient. Try these simple tips to keep up your healthy habits (or establish some new ones).

• Stress can make you want to reach for the nearest snack whether it is healthy or not. Before putting money in the vending machine or grabbing candy from your co-workers desk, ask yourself if you are really hungry. To test your answer, wait for fifteen minutes and then reevaluate your hunger.
• Drink a glass of water. Water will fill you up for a few minutes allowing you to calm your stressful situation. Plus, it gives you something to do with your hands and mouth besides eating that candy in the first tip!
• Eat slowly. When you are stressed, working on a last-minute request your desk before dashing off to your next meeting, you are more likely to eat fast. You barely get a chance to taste the food. If you don’t taste it then your brain won’t register that you are full and you are more likely to pay for it later in the day with low energy, heartburn or other unpleasant side effects.
• Take a walk. Work off the stress with a walk around your office or around the neighborhood. Walking will release those endorphins we were talking about. It improves your mood and helps with stress while helping you to avoid eating unhealthy food. If you can grab some upbeat or relaxing music or a friend, that will make it even more enjoyable.

Doing even just one of these things each time you feel your stress level rise can help you feel better in the moment and later in the day. Not only will your health be better over the long term but you will also feel more in control of your days.

Is Your Diet Sabotaging Your Energy?

Many busy executive women get up grab a cup of coffee and head out the door. Maybe you grab an energy bar for the road while you are also grabbing your laptop, smart phone, the kids' lunches and a pair of tennis shoes just in case you want to walk over lunch. Then lunch time comes. What to eat, what to eat.

On your best days, you might have brought a frozen "healthy" dinner or maybe you grab a salad from Panera. On bad days, it's popcorn out of the office vending machine (the light kind!). Diet Coke in the afternoon and then it's time to head home. On soccer and dance class nights, you grab another energy bar or drive everyone through the local fast food restaurant. You order off the light menu - that's healthy, right?

And, still, you are dragging tired as soon as you stop moving (which is usually when you take a seat to watch that night's practice or game). Piles of work - whether for your corporate job or for your household - are waiting. Where are you going to find the energy to get through it all?

Have you lived this day - maybe even over and over again?

Here's a secret (credit to JJ Virgin): your body is not a bank account; it is a chemistry lab. What you put in is not all equal, and it all causes a reaction. The reaction you want is for it to create more energy. With your diet, it probably isn't. But who has time to fix it? Doesn't that take lots of time and studying?

Sure, it can. Or you can use a few very simple rules and stick to them always. Try these for a week diligently (and I mean no exceptions!) and see how you feel.

• Eat real food. Limit your packaged food to almost nothing. Your goal here is to get off the chemicals and preservatives. No matter how healthy the option is, it is still processed so it has been altered.
• Eat more volume. This doesn't mean eat more period. You are actually probably not eating a tremendous amount - you are just eating the wrong stuff. Load up on veggies and fruits. Put lots of spice or lemon juice to flavor it up. Plain ol' veggies can be a little boring.
• Drink more water. I am not going to tell you to get off of caffeine. Just drink more water too. I cannot live without my morning (and afternoon) coffee, so I don't expect you too!

Work-Life (Un)Balance

The idea of work-life balance is so appealing. This is especially true when you are feeling out of balance - when you feel like you are just barely keeping your head above water. Yet the idea of work-life balance can also be stressful itself...especially as we approach the sometimes already-stressful holiday season.

So many work-life balance guides and articles promote the idea that each day should be balanced on its own. Somehow, you should be able to devote time to family, work, relaxation and taking care of yourself within each 24-hour time period. In some cases, it's almost a math equation: 8 hours work + 4 hours family time + 4 hours fun/exercise/eating = Balance. Uh-huh. That is just not realistic for most of us, nor does it fit our unique lives.

What is realistic is the idea of an integrated life that is defined by the components that are important to you and give you the balance that you want. This isn't the work-life balance from the '90's. This is a holistic approach to looking at your life over weeks and months and even years. This is acknowledging that some days and weeks will be heavy with work and others with time devoted to family.

The key is to think of how each piece works with the others - how they integrate to round out the life and lifestyle YOU want. It is usually not the lifestyle that a mathematic work-life balance equation wants to give you. Here are 3 tips to get you started on that integrated approach:

• List the things that really matter to you over the next 3 to 6 months. Is it spending time with your kids? Getting a promotion at work?
• Honestly evaluate how much time - as percentages of a whole - you want to spend on these areas. If you want to spend 50% of your time on work and career, write that down. If it's 75% or 25%, that's OK too.
• Put your pieces together to form a wheel. Having one piece be large does not mean that your wheel won't turn smoothly or that it's lopsided. That's only true if it's not YOUR wheel and you are trying to make it work anyway.

Figuring out what your integrated life looks like is a big part of letting go of stress. It helps you let go of the ideals that society and the media propose are solutions to us doing too much in one are and not enough in another. It helps you stop being a math equation and start being a human one.

Is Time Management Stressing You Out?

Years and years ago, I had a Franklin planner. My first one was standard blue and provided by the regional accounting firm to help me track all that billable time to clients. Over the years, I graduated to a nice leather one that zipped - even opting to go a bit bigger with the pages and get ones with designs. Mmmm...like that was going to help me get control.

But that wasn't enough. Oh no. I then went to Seven Habits training and got yet another fancy binder with all kinds of tools and tips on how to get all this time management stuff to work. All it did was stress me out.  I didn't feel like I had any more control. I felt like I had added at least one more thing to my list. Updating, prioritizing, sharpening the saw, trying not to get cut by the blade. Ugh.

Most time management systems just don't account for all the stuff in our lives. Why? Because they were designed by men! Now, I have every respect for Stephen Covey and David Allen. They have great systems but they don't work for me. Men can compartmentalize; women are multi-tasking from the time they brush their teeth while doing their hair to answering voicemails while watching soccer practice. Have you found any time management system that works with that kind of life?

So, while you are trying to keep your head above water (and everyone else's too), you are feeling stressed out about losing control of your schedule and your planner. And maybe guilty too. You don't need that. You need something that works for you.

I know busy executive women who keep everything in Excel with color codes by activity, by kid, by importance. Others keep a separate calendars for different areas of their life. I keep mine all in Outlook - I need it to synch with my phone and it means I can send my husband meeting requests for all our family activities. No more excuses on why he didn't know about the kids' school plays!

Whatever your solution, keep these things in mind...it should:

• support your lifestyle without adding a chore to it. Seriously, you do not need one more thing to keep track of.
• be usable always whereever you are. That could be a paper version in your purse or on your phone.
• provide a sense of relief not more stress. You should feel in control not overwhelmed.

Also remember that it will always be a work in progress.  This is not about perfection - searching for that will only be frustrating.  Looking for a workable solution, though, that is totally doable.  What tips do you have for managing a busy schedule?