I love Fall. It’s not just that the NFL is in full swing, it’s the cooler temps and the fact that business is usually awesome. It’s because it’s stress-free (for the most part).
After Christmas though, I feel a sense of stress. It goes all the way through Summer and ends usually in mid-August. Then life gets better. This has been a pattern over the past ten years or so. I figured it wasn’t normal so last year I started making a list of stressors that happened after Christmas. Here they are
1. After January 1, we officially start tax season.
Stress: My old tax guy would get our complicated files in early February and then I wouldn’t hear from him until about April 10, which meant I was in limbo all those months. Every time I’d see that old guy on the HR Block commercials (“get your billions back America”) it would stress me out.
2. Spring Break.
Stress: Trying to figure out whether or not we would do a get-away. We always plan late so plane tickets are ridiculous. Then we normally would do nothing and be stressed over it.
3. May.
Stress: Mother’s Day, our anniversary, and my wife’s birthday all fall within a 7-week period. That’s 3 unique gifts I have to figure out (an act of love…but still pressure to get it right and I learned the hard way you can’t do one gift to cover all three!). Not to mention we have the Memorial Day weekend and the pressure to do something (along with millions of other Americans).
4. June/July.
Stress: Do we take a vacation or not? How to keep my daughter from getting bored. Keeping business going when the family is thinking vacation time.
I know it sounds lame and selfish, but this plagued me for far too long.
So this year, after having identified the stressors, I got proactive.
- We switched tax preparers – I got the official word on taxes in late February.
- We made a plan for Spring Break. Just a couple of days. Tied to a business trip.
- I got the three gifts lined up in early April.
- We booked a cruise in late April for a June sailing date. Not relaxing for me, but it also took care of what to do on Memorial Day weekend since we left a week after.
This past year has been much less stressful, even though we had family drama with my dad’s passing in April. The key was identifying the stressors and addressing them.
Why not try it yourself?