Take a JED – Just Enough Day

Pressing Pause Episode 92 Take a JED

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Welcome to Pressing Pause. I’m Gabrielle Treanor, a mindset and positive psychology coach and writer, exploring how we can create, find and feel more calm, ease and joy in our daily lives. 

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Hello and welcome to episode 92. It’s December, the last month of 2021 and Christmas is only a few weeks away. Are you feeling excited and organised? Or is another Christmas in the pandemic, plus the usual family, work, life juggling already stressing you out?

For years I found Christmas time overwhelming, I love the festive season, I love Christmas, but feeling the need to make everyone happy and not let anyone down and live up to their expectations made for a lot of stress and exhaustion.

Understanding what was behind my festive stress, identifying what would create more peace and joy for me at this time of year and taking action to make it happen, radically changed and improved my experience of Christmas. I enjoy it so much more than I used to.

And it isn’t just me who benefits, the ripple effect is that everyone around me gets a much better version of me too, one that’s more relaxed, appreciative, present and happier! Rather than a me who’s trying to hide exhaustion and grumpiness.

We don’t know exactly what this Christmas is going to look like, there’s plenty that’s out of our control but there always has been and really, uncertainty has become something of a certainty in our lives now. Which is why it’s a much better use of our time, energy and brain space to focus on what we DO have control over.

So if this festive season you want to ditch the stress, the striving to meet expectations, the being responsible for everyone’s enjoyment, the people-pleasing, the guilt of wanting to do what you need – I have just the thing for you. 

It’s a self-paced online course called Coping with Christmas in which we explore what you find challenging, what you really want to do and how you want to feel during the festive period, and equip you with tools, information, inspiration and action steps to create the peaceful and joyful Christmas you really want.

You will move from feeling frazzled, exhausted and spread thin during the festive season, to having the calm, joyful Christmas you want.

To find out more about the Coping with Christmas course go to gabrielletreanor.com/courses where you can read all about it. When you sign up you’ll get instant access to the complete course which you can read or listen to, whichever works for you, at your own pace, there’s no keeping up, no falling behind. So go to gabrielletreanor.com/courses to find out more.

Now, today’s episode is a short solo one and I wanted to talk about the days that just feel really hard. Maybe you can pinpoint it to a reason like you had a bad night’s sleep, it’s that point in your cycle, a huge bill landed on your doormat or your to do list seemed to triple overnight.

Or maybe there isn’t a clear explanation – you just feel a bit crappy. You wake up with no energy and none of the tricks that usually pep you up are working. You don’t feel like talking to anyone, your brain feels slow and ideally you’d make this a duvet day and zone out in front of the TV.

But.

On this occasion retreating under the covers is not an option. There’s stuff you have to do. You have responsibilities, you’ve made commitments. You just don’t feel you can get under the covers and wait for today to be over.

So here’s what you need: a JED. 

A JED is a Just Enough Day. JED!

Yes, it seems like everything on your list is urgent, it’s all a priority and everyone needs you to do everything straight away. (Plus you think you SHOULD do everything straight away, and perfectly to boot.)

And while there may be some actions that are essential, not everything you think you have to do will actually have to be done today. 

Be honest with yourself. Look at what you have to do – what do you actually really HAVE to do or else your world will crumble?

What do you think you really should do but it isn’t actually crucial it happens today?

What can you move on to tomorrow’s list? And if you’re thinking about how awful it’ll be to wake up tomorrow with a mountain of a to do list and what if you still feel like this… Hold on a minute. 

Tomorrow is tomorrow and what if-ing is guesswork – what if you feel full of vim and vigour tomorrow?! We’ll deal with tomorrow when we get to it.

So, back to today. What is truly essential? What’s the bare minimum? What can you do that will be just enough to keep your world ticking along?

That’s your focus for today. 

Just because you allow yourself a JED doesn’t mean that you’ll never be productive again. And for your information rest is productive. I’ll say that again, rest is productive.

Taking a Just Enough Day doesn’t mean you’re lazy or selfish or weak. 

You take a JED because you need a JED. You are not a machine, you’re not always going to be able to keep going at full speed. There will be days, maybe lots of them, when energy, motivation, brain power is low.

On those days, forcing yourself to keep up the pace is likely to not only make you feel even crappier, it’s doubtful those around you will get the best of you either.

I’m not even saying to hell with it all, lie on the couch, turn on Netflix and give up on the day! Although you can absolutely do that if that’s what you want to do.

I’m just saying that when you’re having a hard day, allow yourself to strip things back to the bare essentials and take a JED – a Just Enough Day. You might discover the world keeps turning pretty well even though you aren’t doing ALL the things… Why not experiment with it and see?

For the show notes and transcript for this episode 92 go to gabrielletreanor.com/podcast. And as I mentioned at the start, if you want this Christmas to ditch the stress, the striving to meet expectations, the pressure of feeling you have to make sure everyone’s happy, the guilt of wanting to do what you need, take a look at my self-paced, online course Coping with Christmas. All the info you need is at gabrielletreanor.com/courses so check it out and you can have the calm, peaceful, joyful Christmas you want.

Thanks again for listening, until next time, lovely people.

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