Creating Reserves During the Holidays Do you go from being simply busy during most of the year to having not a minute to spare during the holiday season? Is your schedule so stuffed with holiday parties, gift buying, cookie baking and "fun" holiday activities, that you don’t have a moment for yourself or your family? Do you cross your fingers and hope you can make it through each jam-packed day? Do you pray that nothing goes wrong to put you seriously behind schedule? If you answered yes, you are not alone. While the idea of holiday activities can be wonderful, the actuality is that you can easily become stressed and overwhelmed during this time. However, know that you can help ease your stress during November and December by choosing to create reserves/margin in your life. What do I mean by reserves or margin? The concept of margin was best described by Dr. Richard Swenson in his book The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits (Navpress 1998). "Margin is the space between vitality and exhaustion," he explains. "It is our breathing room, our reserves, our leeway. Margin is the opposite of overload, and therefore the antidote for that vexatious condition." Swenson goes on to say, "Without margin, we are chronically exhausted, chronically late, chronically rushed. Without margin, we are overloaded. Margin, on the other hand, tells us to guard our reserves. Create buffers and fortify them." I make an effort to build in margin year round. Most days, creating margin for myself means leaving fifteen minutes between coaching calls, it means allowing for traffic when going to appointments, it includes exercise time four days a week and quiet time every day--sometimes both in the morning and at night. I simply do the best I can while remaining flexible due to life's unexpected complications. Creating margin in your life will be done differently during each decade of your life. The activities that relaxed me years ago do not hold any interest for me today. The things I do for fun now did not even occur to me ten or fifteen years ago. When we were first married, Jack and I had fun entertaining a lot. We shopped, cooked, enjoyed many dinner parties. Today, I find it much more fun to go out to dinner and not have to cook and clean. During my kids' toddler years, finding time for exercise required a different kind of juggling than it does today. It's easy to schedule the day from sunrise until midnight. Doing so is not smart though. In the long run, you can pay a high price for keeping an unrelenting pace. Margin is a gift I give myself, and it's one you can give yourself. Think about how you can create margin in your life this holiday season. Can you leave early for a party? Give yourself more time to get dressed for holiday activities? Schedule shopping over several days so you’re not pressured to buy all your gifts on one night? Build in exercise and quiet time to recharge? The gift of margin can truly help make your holidays--and the rest of the year--a happy time. excerpt from Progress Not Perfection: Your Journey Matters by Kate Larsen (Expert Publishing Inc.: 2007 ) ----- Have you ordered your copy of Progress Not Perfection yet? If you enjoy the messages conveyed each month in this ezine, you’ll love the book. Go to http://www.katelarsen.com/products.html to order a copy for yourself and a friend. If you want me to sign it to you or someone else, put a note in your order and I’ll be happy to take care of it. Kate Larsen, PCC http://www.katelarsen.com http://www.wellcoaches.com/kate.larsen Phone: 952-943-1430 Author of Progress Not Perfection: Your Journey Matters Executive coach for The Ken Blanchard Companies Faculty, advisor, mentor and executive coach for Wellcoaches Corp.