What to do When You’re Annoyed this Holiday Season

It’s almost Christmas! 

During the holiday season, a lot of things are going on. We prepare gifts, attend reunions, and social gatherings, and parties. It’s also the time we spend with family! 

But all these things could become stressful. 

Now, are you already feeling a bit stressed this holiday season because it’s too busy and you don’t have downtime? Are you going to lose it and probably get into a fight with someone because you just don’t know how to deal with it all? ​

Why we get annoyed

We might get annoyed for many reasons, like these: ​

• Someone is late for a specific event like a dinner 
• People aren't helping out
• There's so much going on and we're going to back-to-back events
• We can't do the things that we want to do, and so it's not feeling like the holidays we imagined it to be

No matter what the situation is, a lot of times we're annoyed because some of our values are being dishonored. By values, I don't mean morals. I mean values in things we align with and need in order to feel in full resonance (energy). When they are being dishonoured, we're willing to get on a soapbox and fight for them and speak up. 

It might be values like:

• Playful
• Personal Growth
• Commitment
• Teamwork
• Challenge

Can you imagine how these two would butt heads? Someone with the value of being in the flow, and another person with the value of being on time.

Now, in the moment, you're not going to say, “Oh, my values are being dishonored” or “It's because their values are that way.” When I work with my clients, they start to understand their values. They start to pick up on when they’re being honoured and dishonoured. ​

But if you don't know what your values are and you haven't done the values assessment, then here are some steps you can take in the meantime.

What you can do to reveal your values

Step 1: Listen to how you're feeling: when you have a knot in your stomach, or you start to tense up, or you feel like you’re going to get mad. Ask yourself, “What is the feeling that I'm having?”

• Is it disappointment? 
• Is it anger? 
• Is it frustration? 

You have to name the feelings so you can see what it's connected to. Once you have that feeling locked in, then you can look to…

• Where did it come from? 
• What triggered it? ​

If the feeling part is hard for you, then this question would be your first question: What has caused me to feel bad? 

Then once you figure out what caused you to feel bad, you can then figure out what the feeling is underneath it. 

Step 2: Now it's clear as to why you're feeling bad and what caused this for you. If I go back to my previous examples of someone who is late, or someone who is not being helpful in making the Christmas dinner, whatever it may be, if you look at that and now ask yourself, what is it about it that is so annoying for me? 

Well, when people are not on time, it’s not just about them being late. It will annoy you for a specific reason. It could mean it's holding up everyone else and that's disrespectful or when people are late, it could mean we miss out on watching the start of a play, a concert, or even a Christmas service. 

With the example of someone not helping you with the meal, it could be because it's stressful for you or you're unable to enjoy the day because you feel like you're just slaving away in the kitchen. 

Step 1: You know your feelings. 
Step 2: You know how that's impacting you.

When you know which of your values are being dishonored, you're now at the point where you get to make the decision if you will share this with others or not. 

That's the decision you get to make. If I look at the two examples, again, someone being late, if you share with them, “Hey, because you're late it’s caused this to happen for me.” You might get a good response, especially if this is someone who cares about you as equally as you care about them. 

Redesigning Relationships

This brings me to the next step of redesigning relationships when people are dishonouring your values. If you do have a bad relationship with someone in your family, you might need to redesign before any situations come up at Christmas time or in the holiday season. 

But if you share with them in a way that is genuine and honest, without lots of emotion, just really stating the facts, they might change their ways. 

If you know certain people are usually late, maybe tell them an earlier time for them to come. Another option is to tell them how important it is to you or the reason why you really want them there at a specific time. ​

If it is around something like helping out, then have set chores or tasks or ask people in advance to do specific things. You don't have to make the whole dinner yourself. If you're bringing people to your house for dinner, then invite them to bring something with them. People love when it’s clear how they can help. I find they're always asking what they can bring. Actually tell them what they can bring so you don't get 50 bottles of wine. Instead, you get maybe five dishes and five bottles of wine. That would make your night or your day a lot easier. 

If you're feeling like “I don't want to make a big deal of it in advance”, then take note of how you're feeling in the moment and ask for some support. 

• If you're annoyed that you’re doing it all yourself, invite someone to help you. 
• If you're feeling like you're slaving away in the kitchen, then take a break and go and sit with everyone and enjoy their company. 
• If you don't like how people rip open presents and leave the paper all over the floor for you to clean up. Make a fun game of it by suggesting, “Let's roll it into a ball and see who can get it into the recycling box.”

Whatever it may be, deal with it in the moment so that it doesn't ruin your whole day. 

So what do you do when you're annoyed this holiday season? 

Check-in with your feelings and the cause of what's annoying you, it could be your values. Then express with others the impact of that and you might have to design or redesign relationships. 

If you want to know more about designing relationships, I encourage you to pick up the Dynamic You book so that you can read the whole chapter on collaboration where I teach you how to design and redesign with family members, friends, colleagues, business partners, whoever it may be. 

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Read my other blogs here: 

1. 5 Steps to Know If a Troll or Hater is Right
2. The Six Levels of Shining
​3. How to Figure Out What You Want