Every December, you end up with a second job title, the one person holiday department. You're Managing Partner of gift logistics. Somehow also General Counsel of family dynamics. And still billing hours while you're at it. Oh, and making sure no one feels left out, that's on you too.

This episode isn't about organizing it better or squeezing more into your days. It's about something much more freeing, letting yourself do less, and still letting it be enough.

Welcome to The Lawyer Burnout Solution, the podcast for women attorneys who want to stay in the careers they've worked so hard to build, without disappearing into the pressure of it all.

I'm Heather Mills, and today we're talking about December, a month that squeezes women from every direction. Work has its year end urgency. Home has its holiday expectations. And you, you end up holding both, often quietly, because you've been conditioned to be the one who keeps everything functioning.

So this isn't about organizing your holiday better. Or color coding your calendar. Or forcing yourself into feeling the festive spirit.

This is about permission to do less. Not because you're dropping the ball, but because you're allowed to be human inside your own life.

Let's be honest, December gets sold to us as this magical time. Twinkling lights, warm drinks, cozy nights with family, the whole thing.

But for most of us, December is more like a logistical triathlon. There are twelve competing calendars, school performances you promised you'd attend, travel plans that keep shifting, someone's always sick, figuring out all the gifts. Plus the weight of everyone else's expectations.

The fantasy is calm. The reality is everything, all at once.

And underneath all of it is a quiet belief so many of us absorbed early. If we don't hold everything, something will fall apart. And if something falls apart, it will be our fault.

Which means doing less doesn't feel like a choice, it feels like a threat. And that's exactly why December hits so differently. It collides with the part of us that's always scanning for what could go wrong.

Here's the deeper truth. We're not just managing tasks. We're risk managing everyone's emotional experience.

At work, we spot the issue before opposing counsel does. At home, we spot the tension before it becomes conflict. We're running the same intake process on our families that we run on our cases, what could go wrong, who needs what, how do I stay ahead of the problem.

At work, we're the anticipators, the planners, the steady ones, the problem preventers.

At home, we often become the rememberers, the magic makers, the peacekeepers, the default decision makers, the emotional thermostats.

This is why doing less doesn't feel like simplifying. It feels like disappointing someone. Like you're risking conflict. Like you're the one who let everyone down.

Because somewhere along the way, we learned that being responsible makes us worthy. That if you're holding everything, you're good. And if you do less, you're less.

So of course it feels uncomfortable to set something down, even when you're exhausted.

Let me share a story that might sound familiar. A client told me she hosted Christmas Eve. Made a beautiful dinner. Everything went well. The next morning her sister texted thank you. And her first thought wasn't pride or joy, it was relief that she hadn't screwed it up. That's when she realized she had been white knuckling her way through what was supposed to be meaningful. She had been treating her own holiday like a client deliverable.

That's the invisible pressure so many of us move through without naming it.

I get it. I used to run myself in circles every December. Fancy meal based on family recipes. At least three kinds of homemade cookies. Maybe more. Perfect gifts for all the nieces and nephews. Making sure my kids had the right outfits. Finding the matching tablecloth and napkins because that's what my mom did.

It was exhausting. And stressful. And I kept doing it because I thought that's what made the holidays meaningful.

Now, we make two cookie recipes, cutouts and chocolate crackle cookies. Last year we might not have even done the cutouts. Paper napkins are good enough. My daughter wears jean shorts because that's what she likes to wear every day. I let go of most of the family recipes and kept one, the candied yams. But now we have it on Thanksgiving. And Christmas Eve, we came up with our own ritual, Indian chaat.

My mom definitely thought it was weird at first. But my kids love it. And I'm actually present for it.

That's the shift. Not abandoning meaning, just stopping the performance that was costing me the actual experience.

And this is exactly why we need to redefine what doing less actually means, because it's not what you think.

Doing less doesn't mean abandoning what's meaningful to you or opting out of the holidays.

For me, doing less meant something I didn't expect, I could stop performing.

What does that actually look like in December? Letting something be good enough. Not managing everyone's emotional experience. Dinner is simple, I don't apologize for it. Someone else can be helpful this time. I say no without explaining. My mood is my mood. I choose being more present rather than performing.

This isn't shirking responsibility. It's respecting capacity.

And when you stop performing, something surprising happens. The moments you actually want to feel, connection, joy, softness, become easier to reach.

So let me ground this in a few simple, real life examples.

These are tiny choices that create real relief.

You skip the photo shoot for the holiday card. Just send a text with a real life photo. It still counts.

You don't volunteer for the class gingerbread activity this year. Someone else will step in.

You buy pre cut cookie dough. Your kids will remember baking with you, they won't remember where the dough came from.

You let yourself skip the event that drains you. No explanation.

You tell your mother in law you're not hosting this year. She's disappointed. You let her be disappointed. You don't over explain, you don't fix her feelings, you don't create an elaborate alternative plan to make it okay. You just let it be uncomfortable. Because her disappointment is not an emergency you have to solve.

These aren't shortcuts. They're acts of self trust.

And there's a deeper layer to this, a psychological truth that makes the whole pattern make sense.

We are trained, through our work, our upbringing, and our gender conditioning, to anticipate risk and manage outcomes.

It's what makes you an effective lawyer. It's also what makes holidays hard.

Our brains treat December like a high stakes case. You stay ahead of it, or something goes wrong. And if something goes wrong, you're the one fixing it. So you just carry everything, preemptively.

It's not a flaw. It's strategy. You learned this to survive demanding environments.

But it's also the strategy that exhausts us this time of year.

Doing less disrupts that survival mode. Not by withdrawing, but by letting some things matter less than your well being.

And when you practice doing less now, it builds something far bigger than a calmer December.

When you loosen your grip on December, you're practicing something bigger. You're letting go of over functioning and learning to trust your own capacity. You're building tolerance for other people's disappointment, their discomfort doesn't have to be your emergency. Your nervous system gets a break. And suddenly there's more space, for connection, for presence, for quiet joy.

This isn't about December. It's about your life.

Doing less now lays the groundwork for doing less in January, and March, and in the moments where it actually counts.

So before we wrap, I want to offer you a question to ask yourself.

What would December look like if you treated yourself like someone whose experience also mattered.

Notice what shifts when you imagine that possibility.

What if December doesn't need your performance. What if it doesn't need every moment smoothed over or curated magic that costs you your sanity.

What if it just needs you. Present, imperfect, human.

Doing less isn't letting people down. It's choosing what's essential. The rest can be messy, simple, unfinished. That's allowed.

And that choice, that's what can make the season feel more meaningful.

If you want next year to feel different, not because you push harder, but because you stop disappearing into responsibility, I'd love to support you. You can book a confidential stress reset call at heathermillscoaching.com/call.

Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.