Creative Pep Talk #94: The Secret to Holiday Joy

If you feel like you’ve lost your holiday joy, you may be overlooking the very simple secret to finding it. I explain how to reclaim it in this short episode (spoiler: it applies to more than just the holidays!).

Want more tips? Check out this playlist with all my previous Creative Pep Talks!

Could you leave a review? It’s really easy, and it helps SO much. Thanks!

Join my free creative community, The Spark! We celebrate each other’s creative courage, and I’ll be sharing programs for subscribers and listeners there in the coming months.

Get in Touch

I’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Subscribe!

You can subscribe to Follow Your Curiosity via the handy links at the top of the page for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, TuneIn, and YouTube. If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to tell your friends!

Transcript: The Secret to Holiday Joy

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Hey, everybody. This is Nancy Norbeck with this week’s Creative Pep Talk. Since we are here in December, as I am recording this, which means that we are deep into the holiday season, I wanted to just give you a thought about holiday joy and how to achieve it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:39]:
And the answer, the short answer, is that less is more. But let me just expand on that for a minute because less is less is more is one of those answers that like so many, can, can be a little bit deceptive and hard to wrap your head around. And here’s what I mean by that. So I’m teaching make bad Art right now. And one of the things that we’ve talked about is how do you want to feel in the process? The thing is, that’s not just a question about creativity. That’s a question about everything. It’s a question about your whole life. And it’s as much a question about the holidays then as everything else.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:18]:
How do you want to feel in the process? I don’t know about you, but that’s not a question that most people tend to think about at the holidays. I can’t remember anyone ever really asking me how do I want to feel during the holidays. Nobody thinks about that because what are we thinking about at least here in the US where this is the most consumer crazy time of year, and since the US is, if nothing else, good at exporting its consumer crazy to the rest of the world, I feel fairly confident that those of you who are listening around the world, God bless you, are probably caught up in at least some of this too. What we are thinking about is: “How many things do we have to buy? Who do we have to buy them for? Where are we going to get them? How are we going to get them? When are we going to get them? Are we going to get them in time? And also what, what are we going to cook? How are we going to cook it? Who’s going to make it? Who’s responsible for which pieces of making it? Who’s going to bring it? Who’s going to, you know, be responsible for putting it all together? How many people are we feeding as we’re getting ready to do all of this, all of these different little logistical pieces? It becomes this enormous production. Some of it is a crazy consumer production, some of it is a crazy feast production. All of it is a massive production. And a lot of it is really really obsessively crazy making. You’ll notice that nowhere in that description was anything about how do you want to feel in this process? Now, when you stop and think about it, the obvious answer to this question is that we all want to feel good, right? It’s a holiday.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:01]:
We want to have a good time. We want to enjoy our family and our friends, but nobody thinks about all of that. We think about all the things we have to do. We have to buy the food, we have to cook the food, we have to prepare it right. We have to get all the gifts. We have to get them. We have to deal with the crowds at the store. We have to order them online.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:18]:
We have to hope that they arrive in time. We have to wrap them. We have to. All of these things that we have to do. I’m going to suggest something really, really, really radical right now, and some of you are probably not going to like it very much, but I’m going to suggest it anyway. And here’s the suggestion. You have to do less of this than you think you do. Now, that may sound really privileged, but let me explain, because maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:54]:
The core of achieving joy in this holiday season is to be in the moment. Most of these things that we think we have to do, and some of us may really, truly have to do more of them than others, but the core of it is to let go of as much of the chaos as possible and just be in the moment. Because, folks, I’m here to tell you that that is where the joy is. The joy is not getting caught up in the chaos and, dare I say it, the perfectionism that tends to come with the holidays brought to you by Food TV and HGTV and folks like Martha Stewart who want to tell you how to achieve the perfect napkin fold for your holiday table. Is the perfectly folded napkin really what’s going to make your holiday joyful? I don’t think it is. I think what’s going to make your holiday joyful is hanging out with your friends and having a good time and letting go and relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. Forcing things to be perfect tends to be when relaxing and enjoying each other’s company is less likely to happen. In fact, it’s the least likely to happen because when we get all up in our heads, we can’t let go and have fun.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:33]:
So I’m going to suggest to you again, and I know this may seem controversial and it may seem crazy, but I really invite you to sit with the idea if it strikes you that way and see how it feels in your body, is to just relax and be as much as you can in this holiday season. Really look at the things you think you have to do and see which ones you truly have to do and which ones you can choose to do, which ones you can let go and choose accordingly. And choose in the spirit of how you and your friends and your family want to feel this season. Because I think you will agree that this holiday is about the people, not about the perfection. It’s not about the hustle; it is not about the bustle. It’s about what you think those things will achieve—and that is how you want to feel. So you might want to take a step back and see how you can reprioritize all the things on your list and put how you want to feel at the top and then see what’s really necessary to achieve that underneath. I think you’ll have more fun and you’ll have a more fulfilling season and you’ll appreciate being less stressed out about it because right there you will add more joy to your holiday.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:08]:
So take some time and sit with that and really think about it, if this comes across as impossible or as crazy to you, because I think it might not really be as crazy as you think. Either way, it’s a choice. It’s yours to make. And regardless of the choice that you make, I hope you have a fantastic holiday and that I will see you in the new year. And with that, I’ll see you next time. If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at The Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:57]:
See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.