[Holiday Voices] What I'm Doing Different This Year With Lisa Autry

This episode is part of Holiday Voices—a special Real Happy Mom podcast series filled with quick holiday tips, uplifting stories, and real-life traditions from moms who get it.

Whether you're a working mom trying to simplify the season, or just looking for ways to reduce holiday stress and be more present, these short episodes are packed with encouragement and ideas you can actually use.

Find all the episodes, links to guest freebies, and more at realhappymom.com/voices

Transcript

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You are tuned in to The Real Happy Mom podcast. I'm Toni-Ann, and this is Holiday Voices. This is a special series where moms share quick tips and meaningful moments to help you trade chaos for calm and make this season a little more like you. So let's jump into today's voice. Hi, I'm Lisa Autry. I'm an author, speaker, homeschooling mom and Christian productivity coach for Mompreneurs. I help women calm the chaos, live with intention and make time for what truly matters most. Christmas is such a magical season that unfortunately feels like it's over in the blink of an eye and leaves our head spinning and bank accounts drained. It goes by way too fast and we feel we miss out on so much trying to juggle the to-dos. With all the fun that we don't feel fully present. Two years ago, I found myself in the throes of homeschooling, managing year end business tasks and feeling like I was missing the spark and joy in the holiday. My balance was failing. I made the decision to shift it to embrace the season's, true meaning without sacrificing the necessities. I asked myself how I could fulfill my obligations and still capture the joy and be present during the holiday season. I decided the first step for myself was to center my choices at the beginning of the season, what I said yes to and what I said no to around what was most important to me. I realized I couldn't be all I needed to be if I held everything with equal importance. I teach moms to lead their values with their lives and businesses. So I decided to take my own advice by leaning into my own values and creating a value centered Christmas season. I listed my top five values and then asked myself, how can I weave these into my schedule so it embraces the holiday season. And brings the most joy. I'll share my values and how I shifted to encapsulate the season so you can see what this looks like. So my top five values are faith, health. Family, meaningful work and freedom for faith. I always dive deeper into the meaning of Christmas with my kids, with the story of Jesus and do an advent study. This helps me draw closer to the whole spirit of Christmas for health. This can be a challenging value during the holiday when there's tons of treats and we are crammed indoors more often. So for health, I decide to focus on nightly family walks while looking at holiday decorations. We sometimes will drive to different areas and walk the lights and just talk. So this helps me not only hit my value of health, but also family. For family, we embrace a tradition I created called. Christmas school. It's focused on acts of kindness with creation, so we do round table breakfast breakfasts with slower and more intention around our faith. Bake cookies for our neighbors, do things with our friends, and scale back a little bit with homeschooling so we have more space to enjoy the season. For meaningful work. I don't add any more extra. I maintain during the holiday season with my current clients and spend the majority of my time dreaming up what the next year will look like and closing out the year in the smoothest way possible. And lastly, freedom. Each day I ask myself, is this the freedom I desire? For me, it's not about packing the schedule, but about connecting. And so this is a great question that drives my actions. Keeping my values at the front and center of the holiday season has made such a difference in my life, and I'd love to challenge you to focus your month around what is most important to you and your family. If you would like to create a value based lifestyle and holiday season, I'd love to gift my Align Audio course to help you get clear on your top five values and then how to lead with them. It will help you finish the year in a beautiful, joy filled way. And the best part is then you can apply it to a year round concept and embrace all your days fully. How are you choosing to fill your season with joy, with what's most important to you? Connect with me on Instagram at Lisa Autry coaching and let me know what you came up with. Have a great holiday season. That's it for this one. It is short, sweet, and straight from the heart. And if you're loving the series, make sure you follow the show or subscribe so that you don't miss what's coming next. I'll be back again tomorrow with another one of these holiday voices. Until then, take care and with thoughts of love.