“Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.”

Ruth Carter Stapleton

Whatever your plans for Christmas or the festive end-of-year period, you will enjoy it most when you feel able to cope with the inevitable pressures and challenges that the festivities can present. Taking a holistic approach to developing your resilience can really support your well-being at this time of year.

To give yourself the pre-Christmas gift of the Five Gold Rings of Christmas Resilience, read on…

1. Energy – being in peak condition. Energy is the foundation of our physical, mental and emotional resilience. Your level of energy influences the way you think, your overall health, your general mood and your sense of happiness. Being able to sustain and renew your physical energy gives you the capacity to keep going during more challenging times. Low energy is bad news and affects every part of your life.

What can you do to make sure you have the right amount of energy at Christmas? Here are some ideas.

Make time for activities that give you the energy to counteract energy-draining commitments – this could be enjoying time in the fresh air, doing physical activity such as yoga or running, meditation, singing or even tidying a garden.

Schedule in regular intervals of self-care, restoration and recovery, even during high-paced or intense periods – this could be a relaxing hot bath, an afternoon siesta, 10 minutes of downtime to walk around the block or simply a restorative hot chocolate drink.

Enjoy your share of the likely nutritional excesses over the Christmas period and also make good choices to support your body with good hydration, fruit and vegetables and high-quality protein, including nuts and seeds. Couple that with taking opportunities, when possible, to reduce alcohol, sugar and starch intake and you’ll find your energy much better balanced across each day.

2. Flexible Thinking – adapting to circumstances. Flexible thinking is the ability to see things from different perspectives, helping you to find alternative approaches to challenges you encounter. The opposite of flexible thinking is ‘thinking traps’ – automatic thoughts which can happen very easily and are often inaccurate, irrational and over-exaggerated. Perhaps you fall into the same thinking traps, make the same assumptions and repeat the same habits. Having a flexible and open mindset helps to prevent you from making snap judgements and assumptions about people and situations.

What thinking traps do you want to avoid this Christmas? Try out these experiments.

Perhaps you always catastrophise, seeing the worst that could happen, maybe expecting that you’ll burn all the food you will make. Work to change your thinking to imagine the best that can happen – what if the meal turns out brilliantly?

We are best at thinking flexibly when we are both relaxed and happy. What activities take you to your relaxed and happy space and how can you get more of that over this holiday time?

We often can’t see alternatives to solve our everyday dilemmas due to our regular patterns of thinking. When you encounter challenges, such as not having enough chairs for Christmas lunch, no time to write cards or get presents, or maybe dealing with difficult relatives, how can you think more flexibly about how to solve these? What might someone else’s perspective be on the situation? In what way might this situation actually be a good thing? How big a deal will this seem in a week, a month, a year?

Image credit: Nikola Tomašić on Unsplash

3. Future Focus – reaching January. It’s much easier to feel resilient when you have a sense of purpose and direction, when you know where you want to go and have an idea of how you’re going to get there. It’s too easy to be stuck in the present, wrestling with problems or issues and not seeing a way forward.

This gold ring is about focusing on your future – thinking about where you want to be next week, next month, next year, in three years’ time. It’s also important to spend some time thinking about why your purpose is so important to you.

To help you get through the Christmas period, think about where you want to be in January and how you want to feel. Here are some approaches.

Think back to move forward. At what times in your life did you feel most fulfilled, successful, happy and valued? What aspects from those times can you seek out again and bring into your future? Take a radical approach and write your resolutions now to get more of these in 2024, before you get drawn into the hurly burly of Christmas.

What’s important to you? Christmas can expose and cause tensions across many values – if we feel uncomfortable or that we’ve let ourselves or others down in certain situations, this can be telling us that something here is important. Notice your feelings and make those connections. If there is a disparity between the cost of gifts exchanged between you and your friends, do you feel bad because fairness is important you or because you believe that money isn’t important or because you wanted to show off your success or because you wanted people to feel special or because you feel you’re not able to keep up with their spending or because you’re sympathetic to others feelings? Each tells us something about what’s important to us.

4. Inner Drive – keeping going. Inner drive is about sustaining your motivation and self-belief. With high inner drive, you can navigate through and around challenges with confidence. You’ll have self-compassion and know how to draw and build on your existing knowledge and skills to respond positively to setbacks or adversity.

Inner drive centres on how you feel about your life – whether you feel positive or negative. Are you currently happy with your lot, engaged in what you are doing and feeling motivated? Or do you feel down, disenchanted and lacking in energy?

How can your Christmas experience boost your inner drive? Try these simple activities.

Many of us approach Christmas thinking about all the things we are rubbish at – parties, making mince pies, writing nice sentiments in cards, remembering what everyone likes. Instead, take a moment now to jot down a list of your Christmas strengths – perhaps you have Christmas jumpers for every occasion; maybe you make excellent trifle; perhaps you have really nice writing for gift tags or cards; maybe you’re particularly good at getting the answer at charades or you are always the calmest person in a Christmas disaster, such as misplacing the crackers.  When you feel a bit wobbly over the holidays, keep yourself going by remembering this list and also think about how it can support you into the future – many of these skills are not just for Christmas.

For some of us, the Christmas period can feel like an age of not achieving anything or time that just drags on. Help yourself with a Christmas journal cataloguing positivity. At the end of each day, jot down your thoughts in three categories – what went well today; what am I particularly proud of today; what am I grateful for today. For each of these, see if you can find a Why. Keep this practice going into the New Year and you’ll be continuing to build your gold ring of inner drive.

5. Strong Relationships – having cheerleaders. Strong relationships are a key enabler in achieving resilience. When you build open, honest and trustworthy relationships with others, you’re able to share your challenges and ask for help. Having a strong network and support system allows you to be highly resilient and achieve your goals.

It’s a common myth that resilient people are fiercely independent or lone warriors. In fact, science has shown that the most resilient people are those people with strong relationships and good support networks both at home and at work. Resilient people are humble enough and confident enough to put their hands up and ask for help. They recognise that they don’t have all the answers and that the more people they talk to, the more potential solutions they can find.

Strong relationships are built on empathy, trust and mutual respect. They rely on effective communication – enough of it and done in the right way.

What can you do to build a better support system around you this Christmas? Try these ideas.

Who are your cheerleaders? Make a note of those who have been your sources of support over the last year, both personally and in your working life. Now think about what you can do to thank those people or simply to make them feel really special.

Who are your gloomleaders? These are people that you struggle to relate to or who rub you up the wrong way or with whom there is friction in your relationship. What can you do to increase the positive interactions you have with them? Perhaps you can listen better, focusing on them; maybe you can express more empathy for them or provide them with positive feedback – telling them when they’ve come up with a good idea, for example. Could you also show more interest in them and their world or actively encourage them to join in yours?

The Five Gold Rings of Christmas Resilience can help you get through to the end of this year, and still be smiling! You can work on all five, or pick one or two that need some attention. When you are in peak condition, adapt to different circumstances, know where you want to be in January, keep going and call on your cheerleaders for support, you’ll have a much more enjoyable festive break.