Ladies Kickin' Ass

#136 - The 12 Gifts You Can Give Yourself This Christmas

• Tanya Wilson • Episode 136

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This episode is a heartfelt reminder that amidst the chaos of the holiday season, you deserve to give yourself some incredible gifts. Tanya shares her 12 Gifts You Can Give Yourself this Christmas, focusing on reflection, peace, grace, and more. It’s a practical, empowering episode designed to help you honor your hard work, celebrate yourself, and step into the new year with intention.

Key Takeaways – The 12 Gifts You Can Give Yourself

  1. The Gift of Reflection
    • Analyze how this year felt emotionally, mentally, and physically.
    • Reflect without judgment—focus on clarity, not beating yourself up.
  2. The Gift of Perspective
    • Setbacks are setups for something greater.
    • Recognize that character-building years lay the foundation for success.
  3. The Gift of Grace
    • Acknowledge that you can’t be everything to everyone—and that’s okay.
    • Give yourself permission to rest without guilt.
  4. The Gift of Permission
    • Stop waiting for others to “anoint” you—anoint yourself!
    • Say no as a complete sentence and give yourself permission to go after what you want.
  5. The Gift of Peace
    • Identify what you need to cut out of your life to feel peace.
    • Resources: Check out "Protect Your Peace" by Trent Shelton for guidance.
  6. The Gift of Self-Celebration
    • Recognize your wins—big and small.
    • Celebrate yourself without waiting for external validation.
  7. The Gift of Rest
    • Rest is not laziness; it’s revolutionary self-care.
    • Prioritize sleep, downtime, and moments that recharge you.
  8. The Gift of Joyful Presence
    • Be fully present and savor the joy of the season.
    • Example: Watch movies, bake cookies, or spend quality time with family.
  9. The Gift of Boundaries
    • Protect your energy by saying no to things that drain you.
    • Boundaries aren’t walls—they’re bridges to a healthier, happier you.
  10. The Gift of Fun
    • Bring fun and silliness back into your life.
    • Enjoy simple pleasures like cheesy movies, baking, and traditions.
  11. The Gift of Intention
    • Set a vision for 2025 and dream big.
    • Create a Reflection Board for 2024 before building your vision board.
  12. The Gift of Letting Go
    • Release what no longer serves you—grudges, guilt, perfectionism, and fear.
    • Letting go is a powerful act of self-love and freedom.

Resources Mentioned

Closing Words: “Mama, you are the foundation of so much love

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Tanya Wilson:

Welcome to the Ladies Kickin' Ass Podcast, where we help you ignite your inner badass and create the service business of your dreams. I'm your host, tanya Wilson, and together we'll dive into inspiring stories and expert coaching to set your journey on fire. Hi ladies, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Merry Christmas. I can't believe it is December. I want to thank you all so much for your patience in me being able to take a little bit of time off.

Tanya Wilson:

I have been wow, just a whirlwind of things that are going on right now, but finally got my family of seven moved into a new home. And that's a lot of work, you know, and I felt the whole time like I was letting people down, I wasn't keeping up with my communication through the community and I wasn't posting podcasts as regularly. And you know what, sometimes we just come into a season where we need to focus on something that's happening personally in our lives and we really need to give ourselves some damn grace. And I don't know about you, but that's kind of a tough one for me. It's super tough. I want to be a high achiever, I want to show up, I don't want to disappoint anyone, and you know what, sometimes you need to just take a timeout. You need to get your shit back in order and you need to be able to come back and show up even better than before. So thank you so much for giving me the grace to be able to give myself some grace. Isn't that interesting how that works.

Tanya Wilson:

Yesterday I was listening to one of my ultra calls with my ultra community through Brendan Burchard's growth day and they were talking about giving yourself gifts, and what I really drew from that was, like my gosh, how many of us, as working mamas, are driving ourselves into the ground right now trying to make everybody happy, trying to make sure you got everybody and their dogs literally a gift for Christmas, that it's the perfect gift, that it's perfectly wrapped, that you're ready to go, that you've got food you're making for dinners, that you're doing all this exciting stuff for your kids to make it magical during Christmas? I know I'm not alone in this, because I just had a great conversation about this with my cousin, erica this month and she sent me a posting that she had found it was just a little meme off of Facebook and it was so good to the point of it's great to make everything wonderful for as many people as you can, but when it comes at the cost of you and your sanity and your happiness, the truth of the matter is that people would rather see you keep those things than buy them the perfect gift, and if they don't, you should reconsider having that person around you in the first place. But what it did yesterday, when thinking about those two things together, was inspired me to sit down and really think. What are some gifts that we could give ourselves this holiday season? What are some gifts that we could do to show up and be able to be all the things that we want to be and not drive ourselves into the ground? So I have put together a quick little list of 12 gifts that you should highly consider giving yourself this holiday season, and I'm going to go ahead and connect those with a link in the show notes for a printable guide that you can easily print out a little PDF, stick it on your bathroom mirror, and I want you to look at this every morning. I'm going to do the same and realize that you deserve these things. Many times as moms. I know as a single mom for many years you maybe didn't even get any presents. Maybe you didn't even gift yourself something. And what we need to realize is that gifts are not always just tangible things that come in a pretty package with a bow. Sometimes they're things we can't see, but they're incredible things that we need to fill. So let's start here with the 12 gifts that you can give yourself this Christmas.

Tanya Wilson:

Number one the gift of reflection. I want you to take time to analyze how this year felt to you Emotionally. How did it feel Mentally? How did it feel Physically? How did your body feel this year? Write down the good things that happened and write down the challenging things that happened. We're not going to sit here and beat ourselves up with a bunch of shit that we said we were going to do that we didn't do. Okay. This is just a quick analysis of how you felt this year. Okay, don't say I was going to lose 50 pounds, but I didn't lose 50 pounds, and then you go down that rabbit hole. We're not going down that rabbit hole, okay, babe. We are just seriously going to analyze how we felt this year. We're going to reflect, ask yourself what worked, what didn't, what brought joy to my life this year, what drained me. I know I could sit down and reflect on those things and I could probably write and I might even tell myself a story. So I have a challenge for you in this one.

Tanya Wilson:

Since we're talking about the gift of reflection, do this. Talking to yourself in the mirror. Nothing is more defining in your life than when you have a conversation directly with you in the mirror, and I'm not saying just kind of look at yourself in the mirror Like if you got to get your cupa up on the sink and sit there and really stare at your eyes. Talking to yourself in the mirror, do it. It is one of the most powerful exercises. When I am feeling doubtful about myself that I do that, man that just turns that. Switch back on like you got this. Give yourself this clarity so that you can start the new year with intention. Let's make sure that we are living a new year in 2025, not just another year, okay.

Tanya Wilson:

Number two the gift of perspective. Remind yourself that any setbacks you experience this year are actually setups for something greater in 2025. Imagine how our years would change if we just changed the way we thought about that. Right there, I was having a great conversation with my friend, nicole, and she was really kind of being down on herself a little bit Like I don't feel like I got as far as I needed to this year. Those are character building years, nicole. Those are character building years and everyone needs to hear that, just because your revenue wasn't where it was supposed to be, you learned so many skills to be able to get that revenue. Maybe they're this next year, maybe it won't be there for two years, but you can't discredit those character building years. I want you to share on a piece of paper what some of the setups were, setbacks were, and what you think they're setting you up for or what you learned from them.

Tanya Wilson:

I know for me, one of the biggest things I was working on in my business this year was really trying to figure out the financial part of my business. My business has surpassed the $2 million mark this year, which I'm extremely proud to say, and it's one of those things that I know Ed Milet talks about all the time and he's like new level, new devils, new level, new devils. You know we think, oh, once we hit the million dollar mark or we hit the two million or the five million or the ten million dollar mark, then we're not going to have these problems anymore. You will. They'll just be bigger ones with bigger, more zeros at the ends of them. But being able to learn how to solve the ten dollar problem, the hundred dollar problem, the thousand dollar problem, sets you up to solve the $10,000, the $100,000 problem, and that is something that we have to embrace in our minds, because in my mindset, a lot of times when it comes to finances because I've been very vulnerable with you all that this is a part that I struggle with in my business I definitely need to pull myself back in and realize I'm a lot further ahead than I give myself credit for. How many of you need to do that for yourself too. That's gift of perspective.

Tanya Wilson:

Number three the gift of grace. Well, hell, I started off the podcast talking about the gift of grace today. Acknowledge, mama, to yourself while you're looking in the mirror, that you cannot be everything to everyone, and that is okay. That is okay if you had a down year. Remember that these seasons of rest or struggle are necessary for you to level up. Sometimes we just need to be able to give ourselves grace that we miss something. Sometimes we need to give ourselves grace that we didn't exactly make somebody happy with the decision that we made, and you don't need to beat yourself up for that. I think high-achieving women grace should be one of the top words that you focus on for 2025. I know it's going to be for me.

Tanya Wilson:

Number four the gift of permission. Why do we wait for others to give us permission to do things? We wait for our kids, we wait for our spouses, we wait for our employees, we wait for people that they don't even know who we are and, for some ungodly reason, we're waiting for them to give us permission to show up and be who we want to be. We have to stop waiting for others to give us permission to show up and be who we want to be. We have to stop waiting for others to give us the green light. Give yourself permission to chase your dreams, take those risks and to say no as a complete sentence. We do not have to say no with an excuse afterwards. How many times do you see a man ever have to do that? But as women, for some reason, we've put this on ourselves too. Is that we say no because, no, becauses? Okay, we're just going to say no.

Tanya Wilson:

I want you this next year, if you want something to go after it, what is that thing you want to go after. I'm giving you, if you need it still, the gift of permission to give yourself permission to anoint your damn self. If you don't see what you want out there in the world, go create it. If your financial picture isn't the way that you want it to be, fix it. If you want to show up online and you want to start teaching people things and you want to be more real and let people know more about who you are, authentically, hit record. I may be talking to myself a little bit here, so I'm going to have y'all hold me accountable for that Number five the gift of peace. The gift of peace. I'm going to be real, honest and vulnerable with you here. I'm not really sure that I know what that is. I don't.

Tanya Wilson:

And if you are someone that struggles with that as well, I highly, highly recommend the book Protect your Peace by Trent Shelton, and if you really want to get into it, get that book. Follow along with a hard copy of that book, but let Trent read it to you through his Audible. It's a whole other level experience. I've read it myself and I've listened to Trent, and if you know anything about Trent Shelton, he is like going to church he is for me. I love that big voice. I love his conviction. I love how certain he is that peace is something that we all need in our lives.

Tanya Wilson:

In gaining that gift of peace, I challenge you to think about. What do you need to cut out of your life to feel at peace? Is it a toxic relationship? Are you fighting too much with somebody? Do you need to distance yourself from a family member? Have you over committed yourself to too much shit? I know I am horrible at that, and this next year I am getting crystal clear on what it is I directly want to do, and if I'm still responsible for something else, I will have an assistant that will be helping me with all of those things.

Tanya Wilson:

It is crazy that we try to do everything for everybody all the time. You do not always have to overcommit yourself. I think something that's really amazing too, that I was just having a conversation with a friend about, is that many times as high achieving women. We will book our schedules and it's color coded and it's so pretty and we're so proud of it, but at the end of the day, all it was was tasks. We just did task after task after task. When the hell do we ever sit down and think when do we ever get to sit down and actually do the work? If you schedule a task, schedule work time afterwards, because you need to go over that task that you just did. If you're reconciling a bank account now, I need to sit down and really think about okay, this is where all the money went, is this where I want the money to go, or do I just reconcile and move on to the next task? And then I didn't analyze anything that I was just doing in the first place. It's like posting to social media and then running off to do something else. You're never analyzing what's working, what's not working. You just keep throwing spaghetti against the wall. Spend the time analyzing. I think that will give you a lot of peace too. I think it's really great.

Tanya Wilson:

Number six the gift of self-celebration. What I want you to do for yourself today, mama, is I want you to look back and recognize your wins. I don't care if they were any many tiny wins, like I got my kids to school on time today, or a big win like I got my kids to school on time all week. There's a lot of kids at my house, so that's a great feat. I made $100,000 this year. I made $10 million this year.

Tanya Wilson:

What we need to do as women is we need to talk more about our wins. We love to share the struggles. We love to live in struggles together. This is what I'm struggling with. When the fuck are we going to start living in celebration with each other? I say that starts now. I tell you that my business did over two million dollars this year, not to make you feel like must be nice or not, to make you feel less than if your business only did $10,000 this year, but to show you that it's possible. And if we don't start doing this more, we put the damper on ourselves as women. We have to do this. It's so important. I'm so passionate about that. I want to celebrate the magic that you've created this year. I need you to know that you are your own biggest cheerleader, and trying to look for celebration and validation from other people is constantly going to make you feel empty. You've got to learn to celebrate yourself, honey.

Tanya Wilson:

Number seven the gift of rest. Rest is revolutionary. It is fuel for your fire. I recently had a conversation with my doctor. I'm trying to get my hormone levels regulated and I'm definitely hitting that perimenopause age and you know your body just feels like it's not your own anymore. And if you feel like that, you're not alone either. I challenge you to find an awesome doctor. But when I was talking to her she was asking me how much sleep do you get? And I wasn't really proud about that, because for me, if I get five hours of sleep, that's a hell of a good night for me. She's like you can't sustain that.

Tanya Wilson:

The weight loss goals that you have and what you're working on require your body to have more time and rest to rejuvenate and recharge itself than what you're actually giving it. It is living in survival mode at all times. The fact that you're not feeding your body properly it's living in survival mode at all times. You have to be able to give yourself some rest, and for me that's been a really tough one to wrap my brain around, because for me, if I'm resting, I feel like I'm being lazy. It's not lazy, mama, it's not lazy at all. It's necessary. You don't always have to be doing something. I have to tell myself that every day. But even if it's something that you look forward to doing with your spouse or doing with your kids, like I've been making conscious time to spend 15 to 20 minutes sitting on my kids' bed with them at nighttime, just having conversations with them or reading a book. That is the best rest in the world to me. I think that is the best rest in the world.

Tanya Wilson:

Mastermind Brendan is always saying bring the joy, and for a while I was like that's kind of annoying. Bring the joy what the hell does that even mean? I think joyful and choosing to be joyful is choosing to be fully present in all the little moments in your life. I take great example from Brendan in that fact of this. Is a very joyful man and you can see it because you just feel his vibration is just like magnetic. But when he talks to you, it feels like his soul is talking to you because he's so incredibly present with you. Nothing else around you or him even matters, because he is 100% focused on you, and that is something that I aspire to do more and be more of, especially with my children. It's so important that they see our eyeballs in their eyeballs and that they feel our hugs and our arms around them. It's that joyful presence that means so much. So, during this holiday season, savor the joy of the season. Make some hot cocoa, walk around the neighborhood and look at Christmas lights, listen to Christmas music with them, make cookies, take them to your neighbors, teach them to be kind, spend time doing something with them, build some gingerbread houses, do something. That joyfulness in my life is 100% brought to me when I am in the presence of my children and my family.

Tanya Wilson:

Number nine the gift of boundaries. See, we all suffer with this one, I think the gift of boundaries. Now, whether you're really good at setting boundaries or not, I think a lot of that is defined by the people that you're trying to set boundaries with, and they may or may not like your boundaries, and so you may or may not give up on them if they are choosing not to respect the boundaries. But protect your time and energy by saying no. It's one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself.

Tanya Wilson:

There's so many things going on during the holiday season and the last two weekends this last weekend and the next weekend. It's a no for me on everything. I just want to spend time with my kids. I just want to continue to get my house put together. I don't need to have a reason why. I don't want to be running around like a crazy person the day before Christmas, trying to get all this stuff together. I want presents wrapped, I want meals made, I want everything, just so I can sit on the couch and chill with my kids and watch Christmas movies or go do whatever we want to. Boundaries aren't walls, they're bridges to a happier, healthier you. And if you look at it that way, it's so huge and I would challenge you that if you are having a hard time with people that don't respect boundaries, lay that one on them. Boundaries aren't walls, they're bridges to a happy, healthier us.

Tanya Wilson:

Number 10, the gift of fun. Bring some fun into your life. Watch silly Christmas movies. When was the last time that you sat down and just watched Elf from start to finish? It's pretty damn funny and it's always funny. Or National Lampoon's Christmas or any of those movies like that. I just love that at the holiday time.

Tanya Wilson:

My daughter and I have really gotten into a bunch of these ones on Netflix that are Christmas movies. They are cheesy as all get out, but there's a little love story and it's so funny. There's one. This makes me sound like a terrible mother, but there's one on Netflix. I think it's rated PG, so it's not a big deal. But this girl moves back into her hometown and her parents are going to lose their theater that they do. So she's from New York and Broadway, so she decides to do like a male review. And it's not massive stripping moms, it is like these guys in the community taking their shirts off trying to save this theater. It is the cheesiest, corniest, stupidest Christmas movie I've ever seen. But my daughters and I laughed so hard watching that movie because it was just so silly. It was just so silly. They're like this is so dumb, like who would go to that? Like it's just so funny to have these conversations, just that's. Those are things that they remember. It's just so much fun. Like baking cookies there's cookies at Christmas time that I only make at Christmas time and my kids look forward to that every single year. I think it's really great that we show them that we can be goofy and silly and it's okay to let their hair down. It's okay to have fun.

Tanya Wilson:

I really, really, really love being able to continue traditions and continue to show kids what charity looks like. Gift of fun for us is that every year, our family, no matter what our financial situation was, we always picked at least kids off of a Christmas tree at the school, or we'd pick a family and we would buy Christmas for them, and this is something that my kids have loved and we've loved doing together since my kids were old enough to do it. I actually did it with my daughter when she was about two or three years old. This year my daughter came home from high school. It's gonna make me emotional, but she had selected a family that was up for adoption at the school. She knew she didn't need to call me and say can we do this? Because it's something that we do every year. She's like mom, I'm so excited because I got to pick a family today for us and we had the best time in Aisley and Cash. We went to Ross and we bought them shoes and clothes and toys and makeup and all this fun stuff. We had a shopping cart full of stuff and it was so fun to be able to bless them with that. Now maybe your financial means doesn't give you the opportunity to do all of that this year, but can you make cookies and take them to your neighbor? Can you maybe just even make Christmas cards? If you can't do that and take them to your neighbor, just tell them that you're thinking about them, even if you don't know who they are. I live in Arizona. I don't know who any of my neighbors are, especially in a new neighborhood. I am determined to know what all their names are by the end of the Christmas season, because I'm going to figure it out and that's. We're going to do that by being charitable to them.

Tanya Wilson:

Number 11, the gift of intention. I want you to spend time dreaming about what you want for this new year, not another year, like I said before, the new year, 2025. Can you believe that? For me, I graduated in 2000. So I always think of that. I'm like it's been 25 years since I've been out of high school. Is this where I thought I would be? Oh, hell, no, hell, no. I had no idea this is how my life would turn out. It's so much better than I ever expected and I feel like it's like that because I was very intentional about it. Did I have setbacks, girl? So many setbacks? I have setbacks every day, but I don't let them define me. I want you to set an intention. I want you to create a vision board and write a list of goals to light it up with, in addition to a vision board. I want to throw this out here to you.

Tanya Wilson:

In talking about number one, which we talked about, was reflection. I was listening to something I can't remember if it was a podcast or something, but they were talking about before you. Create that vision board for 2025, create a reflection board. What'd you learn? What'd you do? How are you honored? How'd you get your ass kicked this year? What are some fun memories you have with your kids, with your spouse, with your family, with your friends? I'm going to do that. I really want to do that. I really want to do that with my family on New Year's Eve. I really want to sit down with them, get a blank piece of paper and just have them write or print stuff off. Bring a printer downstairs, print stuff off, paste it on there so you can see this is what I did in 2020 for. And then ho, on New Year's, you can make your vision board all you want to, but it's really hard to create another vision if we don't ever recap what we did the year before.

Tanya Wilson:

I learned that from Dean Graziosi and he talks about doing this on a monthly basis, which I am definitely putting on my calendar for the next year is that you actually sit down and go through on a monthly basis. Just give yourself a day, just make it the second day of the month. What worked, what didn't work? What was on my calendar? Was that important to me? Did I say yes to too many things? Where can I say no? Where can I cut stuff? Where do I need to add stuff? What can I be better at this month? But if you do that on a yearly basis, if you're a calendar person and you look back, you can definitely see the things that were important to you in 2024. Are those the things that you want to be important in 2025? Reflection is incredible.

Tanya Wilson:

Number 12, the best one of them all, I think is the gift of letting that shit go. Release what's no longer serving you, whether that's a grudge you have against family, friends, somebody that pissed you off, whatever it is, let it go Guilt. We're not doing that in 2025, mamas. We're not doing it and I'm going to talk about it a lot in January because we're not going to go into this year again feeling guilty that we're trying to make a better life for our family by going to work. We're not going to feel guilty because we didn't make the perfect meal for dinner or have party favors on our kid's birthday party. We're not doing this shit, no more. We are not feeling guilty for being us.

Tanya Wilson:

We're, also, on that note, going to let go of perfectionism. On that note, going to let go of perfectionism. Nothing in this world is perfect. Nothing Challenge me. Nothing is perfect, so why the hell do you think you should be? Can we just accept that? We are trying to do the best that we can? Last but not least, we're going to let go of the fears that we had this year and years before of standing out, being misunderstood. Starting small, we are going after what we want. This year, we are going to let go of the fear that there will be judgment. Trust me, you're getting judged for not doing it too, even if you don't know it. So why not just try to make things a little bit better, or try to go more in alignment with what you want to be doing, and just fuck the fear. Fuck the fear. Let's get rid of it. That might be something that you also need to put on your mirror. We can make stickers of that. Letting go is a very powerful act of self-love and freedom, and, after all. Isn't that what we're really looking for here? Anyways, let's recap these 12 gifts as a true mantra for this next year.

Tanya Wilson:

Again, I'm creating a PDF that I'm going to attach in the show notes here. I want you to print that shit out and I want you to hang it. Whether it's on your fridge, whether it's on your mirror, whether it's in on your desk, whether it's next to your laptop, I don't really care where you want to print it. You should print it and put it in all of those places. All of those places. You know what I think I'm going to do with this.

Tanya Wilson:

I think I'm really going to print this and put it in my kids' bathrooms, too, on the mirror, because the more our kids see stuff like this, holy hell, can you imagine what life would have been like if we would have had this information as children, as teenagers? I know that's hard and it's hard for them to understand, but if they can just hear us talking about it, it's so big Talk to your kids about this Reflection, perspective, grace, permission, peace, celebration, rest, joyful presence, boundaries, fun, intention and letting go. I can't wait to hear how you take this information this week and implement it into your life. Please send me a DM Let me know what you think about this episode. Please tell me things that you are working on and how you are dealing with those, and how you're going to give yourself the 12 gifts of Christmas. Remember Mama you are a foundation of so much love and joy in this world and it's time to give yourself a little bit of the magic that you create. Merry Christmas to every single one of you and keep kicking ass, because you deserve it.

Tanya Wilson:

Thanks for being part of the Ladies Kickin' Ass community. Cheers to all you badass women out there. Keep rocking your power, igniting your fire and making waves in the service industry. If you loved today's episode, please do me a quick favor. Take a screenshot, post it and tag us at Ladies Kicking Ass. Be sure to include the link to your favorite episode. Your support in spreading the word means the world to us as we aim to empower even more women. Hit that subscribe button to stay tuned for more kick ass episodes. And don't forget a five star review is the ultimate high five. Connect with us on social media. All the links are in the show notes. Thank you for being part of our tribe. Now go kick some serious ass, lady.

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Tanya Wilson

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