by kathilipp | Nov 12, 2015 | Blog, Christmas, Clutter Free |
Today is the day! It’s time to get yourself that accountability partner who has been saying the same thing as you, “This year, I’m going to be ready for Christmas BEFORE Christmas Eve”. We know, she is your friend because she too struggles and is not afraid to admit that. Those are the BFFs we want to take with us on this challenge! Those are the girls that we think we have fooled into believing that we are better than we REALLY are. Those girlfriends are the best ones because they know the real us- they can’t actually be fooled… so, we give up the thought and embrace them as sisters in love… and join with them because together we will tackle this as a team.
Assignment: Grab a Friend
So here’s what you are going to do- choose one of these ideas to get you started;
- Get on your social media platform of choice and mention Christmas and how you are ready to get it planned before it plans you. See who responds…See who is READY and ask them to dive in with you!
- Call up your long lost BFF (you know the one you have been meaning to call anyway) that girl that knows you and knows what you need (whether it be a swift kick, or a loving hug) and ask her to join you on this journey. Reconnect through this challenge.
- Pray that God place someone on your heart that could use a friend. Maybe she is struggling to get organized, maybe she is not quite ready to admit she could use some help. Don’t worry about who it is, leave that up to God. Ask that He help you AND help her, and then wait.
- Try steps one or two after some prayer time. You never know how God works.
Now, the next part is crucial. Decide how you are going to check in with each other and how often. Make it a commitment. Make a plan. You know the saying “either you are failing to plan or planning to fail”. Just decide that is ok to ‘fail’ but don’t not plan because then you will fail. Since we know there is no such thing as perfect we can deal with a little failure or falling off the bandwagon, but what we don’t want to do is set ourselves up for failure by having no plan.
Share Your Thoughts: After you two have connected and decided to join us, come share with us! Who will be your accountability partner? How did you connect with them? What is your plan for accountability?
Get Yourself Organized for Christmas!
by kathilipp | Nov 11, 2015 | Blog, Christmas, Clutter Free |
Assignment: Get the book and read through page 20
Thinking about Christmas can be both exhilarating and exhausting. Thinking of all there is to do, buy, bake, cook, wrap, plan, organize, clean, and the list goes on. It is no wonder many think about the holiday season with dread and forget the true meaning of why we celebrate.
Whether you are filled with magical wonder or dread, one thing is for certain: ready or not, Christmas is going to happen.
Christmas is just a day. It isn’t the day that is the problem, it’s the expectations around the day that create the problems in our mind. Let’s change that! Let’s make the holidays something you look forward to and even enjoy. I want you to have the kind of Christmas where you celebrate the things that are truly important to you. Clutter isn’t just about things but about activities. Activities that steal our joy and rob us of time to do the things that matter most.
A clutter-free Christmas says that we are doing only those things that are truly important.
So let’s get started.
- Find out what activities are important to your family of friends that you celebrate Christmas with.
- Figure out what is important to you.
For More Details: Get Yourself Organized For Christmas – Page 9-20
Share Your Thoughts:
What would be different about the perfect Christmas? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you eliminate about Christmas? What activities would you be sure to keep? Were you surprised by anyone’s favorite activities in your family?
by kathilipp | Oct 23, 2015 | Blog, Christmas, Guest Blog, Relationships |
You all know (and love) my coauthor and friend Cheri Gregory. What I love about Cheri is that while being one of the smartest human beings on the planet, she is always first and foremost concerned about the heart – not the head. In today’s post, she talks about how knowing who we are personality-wise can affect how we combat one of our biggest temptations this season – the need to buy.
Be sure to hop over to her blog for a chance to win our book The Cure for the Perfect Life: 12 Ways to Stop Trying Harder and Start Living Braver.
“…be content with what you have, because God has said,
‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’.”
(Hebrews 13:5b NIV)
Settling into my favorite chair, I smile and sigh.
I love my life.
Outside the window, a slight flutter catches my eye: a hummingbird. Delighted, I watch the little guy test the feeder options and settle on a favorite flower.
I have everything I could possibly need.
I look slowly around the living room, basking in abundant evidence of rich blessings: shelving units overflowing with books, an over-stuffed couch covered with soft blankets and seafoam green pillows, two cats snoozing in sunbeams.
If I didn’t know better, I’d envy myself!
I giggle and, trying not to feel guilty for being so happy, begin sorting the day’s mail.
A catalog catches my eye.
I don’t need anything, but it’ll be fun to browse for just a quick sec.
Ten minutes, one Sharpie, and fifteen Post-It Notes later, I am a woman possessed. I have found, at long last, the exact kitchen gadgets I need in order to …
I’m at it again.
I glance around the room. Sure enough: my contentment has been replaced by a gnawing sense of need.
The bookshelves are cheap and ugly. The couch is old and stained. The cats ruin everything.
In my lap, more catalogs offer instant solutions to my home improvement problems, quick fixes for the many defects in my wardrobe, and …
I’m not going down this road again.
Bankruptcy no longer tarnishes my credit record, but its lessons are etched into my heart.
I’m still vulnerable.
A book I used to read to Annemarie and Jonathon when they were little comes to mind: The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies.
I shake my head.
I still go from gratitude to gimmie in a heartbeat.
I get up, toss the catalogs in the recycling bin, and return to my chair.
As I watch the hummingbirds flit to and from the feeder, my contentment gradually makes a comeback.
Preparing Our Hearts for a Contented Christmas
During the holiday season, we are bombarded with a barrage of emails and billboards and sale flyers and TV advertisements that all scream, “You NEED this!”
But what we really need is internal fortitude to resist the external forces ganging up against us.
I’m not suggesting that buying things we need or want is inherently bad. Not by a long shot.
What I am suggesting is that we combat consumerism by intentionally choosing contentment. Here are a few how-to tips, customized for each personality:
1) Expressive:
An Expressive’s #1 goal is to have fun. We buy a fabulous new outfit or tickets to a big event, thinking, “This is going to be so much fun!” But as the fun fades (as all fun does), we’re tempted to keep spending money to keep the fun coming.
But the key to fun isn’t funding: it’s learning to trade expectation for anticipation. Rather than getting caught up in how much fun an event is supposed to be (followed by disappointment when it isn’t), we can choose to anticipate and then find the fun in each one.
2) Analytic:
This personality’s life goal is to achieve perfection. It’s so easy for her to get an image of a “picture perfect” holiday in her mind and think, “It isn’t truly Thanksgiving/Christmas unless the ______ (house, meal, tree, etc.) turns out just right!”
When perfection becomes our only conduit for contentment, disappointment is guaranteed: for ourselves and those who feel like they’ve let us down. Instead, we can choose to re-define “perfection” as “good enough” (no matter how much of an oxymoron that may seem to be!) and look for perfect moments to truly enjoy.
3) Driver:
For Drivers, whose life goal is control, it’s very easy to treat the entire holiday season as one giant list, moving from one thing to the next: check, check, check. We had that last night, we have this today, and soon it’ll be tomorrow when we will… The danger in this approach is never being present in the moment.
Detaching contentment from achievement may require taking an eraser to the calendar. We may need to say, “No way. I can’t be fully present for every single one of these. I’m just going to be hopping and skipping and jumping but I’m never going to actually be there.” Slowing down and making space for relationships may feel less productive, but it’s what creates true contentment.
4) Amiable:
The Amiable’s life goal is peace. Always. Between all people. This can be tough at the holidays. Put a bunch of people with different personalities together, add some travel, throw in gifts, mix with fatigue, and Peace on Earth is not an easy goal to achieve.
It helps to remind ourselves that sometimes the messiness, chaos, and even conflicts of life are normal. We can focus on being grateful for those who have gathered together, even when they aren’t getting along perfectly. Even when the people around us aren’t exactly peaceful, we can still choose contentment.
Looking for encouragement to help you recover from that pesky problem of perfectionism? Today’s featured book is The Cure for the Perfect Life.
You can enter to win a signed copy by leaving a comment directly on . 
PLUS, you’ll also be entered into the grand prize drawing for the Wrapped In Grace gift package: signed copies of all five of our books, a $100 Visa gift card, and a bunch of other fun goodies. All winners will be announced Saturday, October 24th, at http://www.WrappedInGrace.info.
Cheri Gregory is a teacher, speaker, author, and Certified Personality Trainer. She is a frequent presenter at women’s retreats, parent groups, and educational conferences. She has contributed to or coauthored a dozen books, most with Kathi Lipp, including The Cure for the “Perfect” Life: 12 Ways to Stop Trying Harder and Start Living Braver and Clutter Free.
Cheri has been “wife of my youth” to Daniel, her opposite personality, for twenty-seven years. She is “Mom” to Annemarie (24) and Jonathon (22), who are also opposite personalities. The Gregory family lives on the central California coast.
Cheri’s passion is helping women break free from destructive expectations. She writes from the conviction that “how to” works best in partnership with “heart, too.” You can visit Cheri’s website and connect with her on Facebook.
by kathilipp | Oct 22, 2015 | Blog, Christmas |
I’m so excited for you to meet my next friend, Glynnis Whitwer. She is part of Proverbs 31 and is the author of Taming the To-Do List (she is a woman after my own heart.) When I go to Arizona, Glynnis and I get together over food (lots of food) and talk about keeping life simple and beautiful. Today, you get the same opportunity by reading her post. And be sure to head over to her blog to !
Some people love Christmas and look forward to it all year. Me? I love the reason for Christmas … but the extra work required? Not so much.
Although Christmas should be a season of pausing and pondering, rejoicing and revering, it can turn into just one more thing on my overloaded to-do list. It’s so easy for me to lose the beauty of the season in the bedlam of an overloaded schedule.
And that’s not God’s wish for me.
I’m confident God longs for me to use this season of joy as an opportunity to connect with Him in a deeper way and to connect with others as we celebrate the birth of Jesus together. Christmas is a time to remember Emmanuel, God with us. And my heart and home need to be prepared for this Special Guest.
But without a plan, my heart will struggle. I’ll feel resentment at the added expectations. I’ll feel frustration at the extra time shopping takes. I’ll feel stressed when other people are stressed, and then I can add to the tension with my out-of-proportion reactions.
I don’t want to be the Grinch! I want to be a woman who reflects God’s love and grace, especially when others might be feeling the pinch of the season.
Even though it can feel a bit overwhelming, it is possible to minimize, or even eliminate, many of the practical challenges of Christmas. And when there’s order at the foundation of my life, my heart is lighter and I can laugh rather than cry when something goes wrong. I can also take advantage of opportunities that only come around this time of year.
But while some people can spontaneously make all this peace and joyfulness happen, I need some intentionality to bring about special moments and experiences.
I’ve discovered I don’t need a fancy planner or app to help bring some order to my life at Christmas. All I need is some quiet time to think and some paper or a computer to create my lists.
Christmas is a time when there’s more required of us. And lists help me keep track of all the things I want to remember. They help me prepare in advance so I can enjoy the moment. They help me think through gift giving so everyone doesn’t get a mug. They help me plan events where I can show the love of Jesus.
A good way to keep track of all your lists is a Christmas notebook. This is something you can easily create digitally or with a 3-ring binder, tabbed inserts and paper. You could also pick up a pretty journal and keep your lists there.
Next, grab a hot cup of coffee, your notepad or computer, and find a quiet place. It’s good to start with prayer, asking God what He wants for you. Let Him bring to mind people who need to be remembered, lessons you want to teach your children, maybe a lesson you need to learn. Lists don’t have to contain things to do. They can also be personal and spiritual goals.
Then, think through what would make this Christmas special for you and your family. What are your hopes? Once you’ve thought about it, invite your family into the discussion. Capture these ideas on your lists.
Here are some other lists you might consider making:
- Prayer requests
- Gifts for others
- Books to read
- Stocking stuffer ideas
- Outreaches you want to do (Ex. Operation Christmas Child)
- Menus for special dinners
- Holiday events to attend
- Decorations you need to buy
- Traditions you want to remember
- Cookies you want to bake
- People you want to connect with
Now that you have a fabulous start to your lists, keep them handy so you can add to them. But don’t let all those wonderful ideas stay on a list. The final step is to transfer some of them to your schedule. Just do what you can do this year, and 
save other ideas for next year.
Don’t worry about doing any of this perfectly. The goal isn’t to have a perfect Christmas. The goal is to be more intentional and to create a foundation where everyone will experience more peace and joy than stress.
Lists certainly aren’t the solution to every holiday challenge. But in a season when we tend towards overload, they are a good practice. And hopefully they’ll create some margin in your life so you can do more pausing and pondering, rejoicing and revering.
Looking for encouragement to help you recover from that pesky problem of perfectionism? Today’s featured book is Taming the To Do List. You can enter to win a signed copy by leaving a comment directly on . PLUS, you’ll also be entered into the grand prize drawing for the Wrapped In Grace gift package: signed copies of all five of our books, a $100 Visa gift card, and a bunch of other fun goodies. All winners will be announced Saturday, October 24th at http://www.WrappedInGrace.info.
Glynnis Whitwer, executive director of communications for Proverbs 31 Ministries, is a regular contributor to Encouragement for Today, the Proverbs 31 email devotional. She is the author of I Used to Be So Organized, When Your Child Hurts, and work@home: A Practical Guide for Women Who Want to Work from Home, and the co-author of Everyday Confetti. Glynnis, her husband, Tod, and their five young adult children live in Arizona. She blogs regularly at http://www.glynniswhitwer.com.
