Welcome to the last newsletter of the year. I hope no matter how you spend this time, you have some joy, calm, and connection.

Recently, I was asked about tips for people running businesses and managing life around it (family, kids, hobbies, housework). Here's something approaching what I said:

• First off, you're doing great. If you're up and not crying at this moment in time (or even if you are), you're doing wonders.

• Every yes means a no elsewhere. Choose your yeses and your noes. Sometimes you may not have a choice, but when you do, reflect on what this yes or no enables for you.

  

• What are you carrying and what can you put down? I shared something I realised a while ago. I do the vast majority of the food shopping. This means I know what we have in. Which meant I needed to provide options for the evening meal, because my partner didn't know what we had, because I was holding all that knowledge. So: a whiteboard. We have one in our kitchen. On there is a list of meals we can make (not all of them, but a lot of them), plus use by dates where needed. The other half is a shopping list. This means I'm not the sole holder of food knowledge, and therefore food decisions. Jack can now help and make the decision on what's for food when my brain is not braining. Some of you may wonder why we don't plan our meals in advance. We both have chronic conditions that are unpredictable, so planning is difficult, and also I have a touch of demand avoidance and refuse to be told what to eat by a spreadsheet or whiteboard. This is a solution that works for us.

  • Is there knowledge or tasks you are holding that can be outsourced to other people, a whiteboard, something else?

• It's been unseasonably warm this December where I am, but it's been rainy, so my winter self care of fewer walks but more reading and being deliberate with my screen time has come into force. It's difficult when there's so little day light, but self care is important no matter what, and so figuring out what self care looks like in different seasons is important (and can be fun).

• Be grateful, but not guilty. Practising gratitude can be really helpful, but not when it becomes a mechanism for guilt. Being grateful for your health is one thing, following it with 'so why am I struggling', or other ways to try to 'pull yourself together' is unhelpful. Sometimes we do get lost in our heads, anxieties spiral, and we feel overwhelmed by things, and need some grounding to bring us back to the present. Indulge in small moments of joy and reflect on those moments.

• Give yourself grace. There's a balance between avoidance and giving yourself grace that I'm currently deep diving into in myself, so I'll be talking about that in the new year. Chances are though, there's at least one area of your life where you can give yourself grace.

  • Is it self care to avoid tasks until you push through and do them out of sheer stress? Obviously no, but it's an interesting balance to explore.

Take care, I'll see you all in 2026