Have you ever stopped to wonder why you’re clinging to certain traditions—ones that might drain your joy, cause resentment, or leave you feeling trapped? What if you didn’t have to keep doing them?

In this episode, we’re diving into the emotional weight that some traditions carry and why it’s okay (and necessary) to rethink them. I’ll walk you through a simple four-step process to assess the traditions you’re upholding, decide what truly matters, and make space for traditions that bring joy instead of stress.

Whether it’s family gatherings, holiday routines, or yearly commitments, this conversation will help you align your life with what’s important to you—without guilt or explanation.

In This Episode, We’ll Explore:

• How to identify the traditions that might be creating hidden stress
• A four-step process to evaluate which traditions align with your life today
• Why it’s okay to let go of or tweak traditions that no longer serve you

Listen to the episode here!

Or watch the episode here!

I’d be honored and grateful if you would head over to iTunes to leave a review and let other female entrepreneurs know what you learned! While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss an episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] you ever stopped to wonder why you're clinging to traditions that might, you know, cause resentment, maybe make your eyes roll or completely drain your joy? What if I told you, you don't have to keep doing them and that breaking free, isn't as scary as it seems now stick with me because in this episode, I'm going to show you how you can ditch traditions that feel more like traps and create space for what actually brings you joy.

[00:00:28] Today we're going to talk about how traditions in our families and lives can be actually creating stress you're not aware of and resentment. And I'm going to walk you through a four step process you can use to kind of navigate this and make sure you're aligning your life for what's to come. And it's really, truly important to you.

[00:01:06] Now before we get into that, I do want to share with you some great feedback that we got from Julie here, who is a long time listener at the Work Life Harmony podcast. And she shared this about one of our recent episodes. She said, I wasn't able to get. any projects or goals complete until I listened.

[00:01:23] Now I actually have time and a process to complete the projects on my bucket list. Thank you so much for sharing that, Julie. And friends, if you are loving the show, I would love it if you could take 30 seconds out to leave a five star review and maybe share your favorite episode with a friend. Now, last December, I was chatting with my neighbor across the street right before, you know, the whole Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's, all of that.

[00:01:50] And she asked us what we were doing for Christmas Eve. And so I shared with her kind of our tradition. And I, I said, Hey, you know what, we've, we've been doing the same thing for years. It's a little, you know, not, not the norm for a Christmas Eve tradition, but we have fully embraced what we call our Feliz Navidad Christmas Eve night where we make.

[00:02:08] and by we, I mean my husband makes a ginormous platter of nachos. And typically my family that lives here in town, my parents and one of my sisters and my nephews come over and it is the most obscene plate of nachos you've ever seen. And I usually make my really, really good guacamole. That's kind of my contribution.

[00:02:26] And I was, you know, sharing with her over the years, we've actually acquired sombreros and maracas and we just make a whole. Again, not your very traditional Christmas Eve. And she paused and then she started sharing with me how unhappy she was that her daughter, who's now grown married kids of her own, has not been keeping their holiday traditions that she was raised doing.

[00:02:54] And I could tell it was really upsetting to my neighbor that her daughter wasn't carrying on the family traditions of her youth. it caused me to pause and I said, well, hang on, you know, our nacho tradition is not from my childhood, nor is it from my husband's childhood. I said, it actually, you know, I said, let me think how, you know, what started this.

[00:03:15] And I realized it was. The first Christmas where I was pregnant at that time and, you know, food cravings, they hit and it was just going to be my husband and I on Christmas night together here at home. I was like, I don't want the big rigmarole and honestly, I'm like, I'm just craving nachos. And so we had nachos for Christmas dinner.

[00:03:35] the year that I was pregnant. over the course of the next couple years, it shifted over to Christmas Eve and it's, it has stuck and it's now grown into this much bigger tradition. And then I shared with her, I said, well, my tradition growing up on Christmas Eve and our family be perfectly blunt.

[00:03:55] Sorry, mom, if you're listening to this, but I know this probably isn't news to you. Our Christmas Eve dinner was a meal I hated. I did not like any part of the Christmas Eve dinner tradition, except for the biscuits. My mom makes killer homemade biscuits and I would basically eat biscuits for dinner.

[00:04:11] We grew up eating a, the rest of my family loved it, a roast beef with a mushroom gravy and Yorkshire pudding and green beans. And I literally don't like any of those things. And so I told her, I said, yeah, I knew the minute I was on my own, I had no desire. to carry that Christmas Eve tradition over into my own family and my neighbor looks shell shocked.

[00:04:36] But then after a minute she paused and we gave each other a hug and she said, you know what Megan, you've given me a lot to think about. So I don't know what has transpired with my neighbor and her daughter. But I think it made her realize, you know, we all have our own traditions and we deserve the right to decide what we may want to carry on versus what doesn't suit us anymore.

[00:05:00] And I've gotten much better over the years at making sure things are not getting on my calendar or my to do list. out of sheer obligation. But I tell you it is a theme I hear over and over and over again from women inside of the T. O. P. program. There's usually at least one or two people on the monthly live calls that I hold that openly share That they spend a significant amount of time over the course of a year doing things, hosting events, maybe making stuff, et cetera, that they really don't like doing, but they do it because they feel like they quote should.

[00:05:42] And when we dig into why they feel like they should. A lot of times it stems from, well, that's how we've always done it, right? It was a form of a tradition. I want to share with you a really simple four step kind of process, if you will, that you can really start to go through and start to assess some stuff in your own life.

[00:06:05] To see, are you spending significant time that often leads to some kind of harboring of resentment out of obligation around traditions? And then I'm going to share with you something that I've changed in my life recently, kind of going through this process that might inspire you to rethink some of the traditions that you are doing that you don't love and how you might choose to shift them.

[00:06:33] All right, so the first step in this process is simply to ask yourself, what traditions am I currently upholding? And the easiest way to do this is honestly just to pull out a calendar and look for holidays, birthdays, events, because usually, usually, not always, traditions fall around some kind of a celebration, right?

[00:06:54] Whether it's a holiday, whether it's a birthday, an anniversary you know, a seasonal shift or something like that. And I want you truly just to make a list without thinking about it. Just start writing down, okay, what are the things that you do? Right? So some of these examples could be, you know, like for us, we do, you know, we decorate gingerbread houses every year.

[00:07:15] There might be cards that you are sending out. There might be decorations that you do. There might be things that you bake or you make. There might be events that you hold like, oh yeah, every year I do this, whatever. picnic and you're thinking, I've never really thought about it. I just do it on autopilot.

[00:07:30] All right. So I want you to really write down what are the traditional things, things that you typically do year over year. It can be stuff that is, you know, usually it involves time, right? So don't just think about the outward stuff. Think about the inward parts, right? Are there, is there decorating that you do?

[00:07:47] So on and so forth. Now, once you've made that list, step away from it for a second. All right. Separate yourself. Now, come back with fresh eyes. You might even wait, wait a day and look through each one of those and instinctively as you look at it, just ask yourself, do I like it? All right. And I want you to write down yes, no, or you can put an X or a circle, however you want to make a notation of that, but don't overthink it.

[00:08:14] What's your instant thought when you see, do I like this? Do I like doing it? Do I get enjoyment out of this? Now that's the second part. So first we've got the list. Now we've thought through, do I actually even like this? So now we need to talk about the two paths that we're going to take here. first is, what if it's a no?

[00:08:31] I want you to go through all of the things that you kind of went, you know what, no, it's exhausting. I just don't enjoy it anymore, whatever it is. And then I want you to really think through where does this tradition originate from? Half the time we have no idea why we're doing something. It's just the way we always did it.

[00:08:51] I even think about this with my own daughter. Like what if years from now, she has a family of her own and is like, well, it's Christmas Eve. We're making nachos. And the rest of her family's like, why are we making nachos? She probably doesn't even know the origin story. Well, she probably does now because we talk about it, but we often find ourselves just going, well, this is what we always did.

[00:09:11] Right. And as you're navigating, Why am I doing this? How did this originate? I want you to really think, am I doing this now because it's become a should? Well, this is what we've always done, so I guess I should keep doing it. And if it is a should, Alright, now you get to ask yourself Am I ready to let go of this?

[00:09:35] Right? And remember, you get to do this for you. You don't owe anyone any explanation. I didn't feel the need to sit down and tell my mom, Hey, we're having you over for Christmas Eve, but we're not going to be eating roast beef. All right, I didn't owe any explanations. This is my tradition. This is what we're doing here in our home.

[00:09:52] And allow yourself to really think through it instead of just doing these traditional things on autopilot. All right, so for every single thing that you put a no next to, ask yourself, where did this originate from and why am I doing it? Because often this is going to allow you To free up the space to no longer carry this through.

[00:10:17] Now I want to talk about the part of, you know, you, there may be traditions that you put a yes on, but if any of for any of that you have a yes, like, yes, I still like this. Yes. This brings me joy. I want you to also look at the lens of those of do you enjoy it, but is it creating stress? Right? Because there may be things that we love, but they add stress.

[00:10:41] And I'm going to give you an example here in just a minute of what I'm talking about, because this is a change I've made. Because if there is something that like, no, this is your tradition and I enjoy it, but man, it always causes a lot of stress. Now you have the opportunity to say, how can I shift this and tweak it to bring it into my life in a way that That isn't creating added or unnecessary stress.

[00:11:03] And there are lots of ways that you can tackle this, right? It might be that you delegate something that, you know, traditionally you were always doing. It might be that you shift up how you do it. You might do it a little bit less. You know, one of the things that I've shared here on the podcast before, I love holiday baking.

[00:11:20] I love making cookies, but sometimes doing all of it in December is stressful. That's why my daughter and I started several years ago, Christmas in July. And it's become a new tradition, but only as long as it's still fun for us. We pick a random day in the summer, we put on Christmas music and we make a ton of Christmas cookies that freeze really well.

[00:11:38] And then they're ready for us in December. So while I still do a little baking in December, I don't have to do as much, right? So that's an example of a shifted tradition. Now, here's one that I was, I'm always re evaluating for myself all the time, especially around holidays, events, celebrations, and this past you know, Q4 holiday season, I had in my plans, as I always do, to do holiday cards.

[00:12:02] I love holiday cards. I love receiving holiday cards. I love getting updates from friends and family and loved ones of, you know, especially as people's kids are getting older they're starting to have kids. But I realized the stress of getting the holiday cards out every year is just starting to feel looming.

[00:12:20] It was one more thing and already very busy time of year. So I thought to myself, how can I shift this? So I've decided my new, and I don't know if I'm going to call it a tradition, but what I'm doing this year that I am going to continue doing as long as, again, it brings me joy and isn't adding stress, I will be sending out Valentine's Day cards instead of, you know, traditional Christmas holiday cards in December.

[00:12:49] So for those of you that, you know, maybe in the past, if you've been on my Christmas card list and you, and you did not get one this year, well, surprise, I'm going to be sending out Valentine's Day cards instead. So this is a way I'm shifting up something a little bit different. And you know, it's, I'm able to do this at a time of year where it's not super busy in, you know, mid to late January.

[00:13:11] It was enjoyable for me to reflect on the last year and pull together some photos and put together a card. And that's what I'm going to be doing to change things up a little bit. So just because it's the way it quote, always has been, or that's your tradition doesn't mean that it always has. Now, if listening to this is inspiring you to rethink a tradition, I would love for you to share with me what you're going to be shifting.

[00:13:42] And the easiest way to do that, if you are on Instagram, please come find me at Megan Sumrall and shoot me a DM and let me know how you're going to be rethinking. Some of your traditions and maybe either stop doing them completely or change them up and create a new version of it. That doesn't, you know, create resentment, stress, or take the joy out of something that was supposed to be fun in the first place.

[00:14:09] I cannot wait to hear what you're going to be changing up this year.