I am going to share the Top 5 Reasons Why People Stress About Entertaining during the holidays with you.
Will you be hosting a party or gathering any time soon? Are you stressing about it right now?
I totally get it!
We all agonize over entertaining. Whether it’s for a holiday party or a casual get-together. Even the pros.
But why?
WHY!
Why do we do that to ourselves?
Why do we get so stressed about entertaining?
Especially when it’s an event that we have invited our friends and family to attend.
After all, aren’t these the people that love and support us?
There are five primary reasons we stress out over entertaining. I go through each one for you below.
Top 5 Reasons Why People Stress About Entertaining
1. You stress about entertaining because you feel you will be judged
For some reason, we feel that our friends and family will negatively judge our entertaining abilities. Whether we are hosting our 1st party or our 50th.
Why?
It’s almost as if we think our friends are keeping a mental checklist of everything we did wrong.
Do you negatively judge how poorly your friend hosted a party?
I doubt it, because if you do, then you aren’t being a very good friend.
You put unnecessary pressure on yourself when you feel you will be judged.
The perception that you will be judged on your ability for hosting a party creates a huge amount of stress.
You feel that others will compare you to someone else. Maybe someone that hosts tons of events.
But that’s not you. You aren’t a professional, are you?
And I doubt your loved ones are judging you.
2. You feel everything must be perfect
People stress about entertaining because they have a belief that everything must be perfect.
That nothing can be allowed to go wrong, and that somehow they must be able to prevent any hiccups from possibly happening.
They stress themselves out by feeling that their entertaining skills must be exceptional.
The time and energy trying to make sure that everything is perfect can be SO stressful!
However, perfection is an unrealistic standard. And it’s okay to not have the perfect party! You can strive for it but don’t set yourself up with the expectation that your party must be perfect, with the thought that if it isn’t that it’s a failure.
You are just creating unnecessary stress about entertaining.
3. You angonize about entertaining because you create unrealistic expectations for yourself
When you create an unrealistic expectation for yourself, you set yourself up for stress.
Why do we do that? Why do we have a vision of creating something that we don’t really have the time to fulfill?
People do it all the time when they are planning to entertain friends and family.
Maybe they’ve never entertained and this is the first time. Or maybe they’ve hosted one or two gatherings or more.
But inevitably they create an unrealistic expectation that they can accomplish a crazy long list of items that they feel must be done for the event.
They believe that they can accomplish in 8 hours what in reality takes 15 hours.
Try to limit your stress by creating a realistic expectation of what you can accomplish within the time you have.
You might need to step back and reevaluate your to-do list or enlist the help of friends or family when you are planning to entertain.
4. You stress about every single tiny detail
Overthinking every detail about entertaining friends and family is SO stressful!
You worry that the blues on the tablescape don’t perfectly match, that the place cards aren’t perfectly aligned, or that the flower arrangement doesn’t have the correct number of flowers.
Those tiny details that no one else will even notice.
Because, in all honesty, your friends and family won’t notice (or care).
Do you know why?
Because they don’t know your plan. They don’t know your vision or the details of the event.
They just see the big picture.
So try not to stress about the tiny details. They might make a difference, but most likely those tiny details won’t be missed or noticed.
5. You stress about entertaining because you’re afraid you’ll forget something
Oh, the stress that you will forget something for your party! You probably are constantly going over a mental checklist, agonizing that something will be forgotten.
Something that you feel will impact the gathering.
The fear that you will forget or overlook something in planning your event can be extremely stressful.
To help minimize that stress, create a checklist as soon as you decide to host a function. No matter how large or small the event will be.
Either create a written checklist or create one online. The key is that it must be easily accessible. You must be able to quickly update it, by either adding to or checking off completed tasks.
Let the list be your memory keeper, thereby decreasing your stress about trying to remember everything you are planning for your event.
I hope that by sharing with you the top 5 reasons why people stress about entertaining, that it will help you to minimize your own stress the next time you will be hosting a party.
Because you are aware of what causes the stress, and how to lessen it, you can enjoy your gathering with your friends and family.
*Cover photo by Susn Matthiessen on Unsplash
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