Category: Thinking Clearly

When you think about goals as finish lines… you line up on a start line and prepare to race.

…Because that’s what we’re wired to do when there are finish lines involved.

But when you think about your goals as the construction of masterpieces… suddenly racing gets removed from the equation altogether.

…Because taking our time, pouring from our soul, and demanding from its construction our best is what we’re wired to do when “masterpiece” is involved.

P.s. Just lay the next brick.

If the holidays wasn’t everything you hoped it would be… rather than place blame on those who didn’t deliver on your expectations… ask yourself: how can I take more of a role in making it into what I’d love it to be?

Maybe that involves doing the hosting yourself? Or introducing fun games to encourage more spontaneous connection? Or coming up with fresh and creative traditions that’ll get everybody talking… like wearing matching pajamas, or playing a game of spoons, or gifting an incredibly random gag gift…

The point is to take control over what you can control. And if you’re not willing to do that… then maybe don’t place blame on those who are willing and are trying… maybe it’s worth meditating on how you can drop expectations all together and uncover new ways within yourself to have a good time regardless of the setting…

Some counter culture gift ideas for the holiday season.

• A friend and his girlfriend decided they were going to skip town during the holidays altogether and have themselves an experiential weekend in a city they’ve never visited before capped off with an NBA game as the cherry on top.

• Another friend was telling me about a new tradition he and his wife started with Gold Belly. Apparently, you can live in Alaska and have Chicago style deep dish pizza for dinner—without ever leaving your home. Or Philly Cheesesteaks from Philadelphia or lobster from Maine for that matter… Each year, it’s a new dinner dish from somewhere different across the USA and Canada. And it’s a gift that’s totally unique, authentic, and shared.

• And yet another friend was telling me how he and his wife have given up gift giving altogether and decided to write each other a love letter each year instead.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the commercial brainwashing of the holiday season that we forget we have control over how we want our holiday to actually unfold.

Ask yourself what your ideal holiday schedule would look like… what experiences you truly want to put on a pedestal (getting an expensive gift?)… and then start reverse engineering your way towards that vision.

As is the case with most things in life… this holiday season is what you make it.

…Not what it’s been made out to be.

I read a great line by James Clear today that said, “If we consider each moment a ‘repetition,’ what are most people training for all day?”

Some, I’d say, are training to become angry keyboard warriors.

Others, I’d say, are training to become professional self-sabotagers.

And there are plenty who it’d appear are training to become full-time spectators.

…This is an excellent question to integrate into your mindfulness practice.

Maybe add a random alarm on your phone or do a daily check-in at a specific time and ask yourself, “What am I training for—what am I getting repetitions in for—in this moment?”

…Are you reinforcing a message of self-doubt or a message of confidence and courage?

…Are you reinforcing a behavior of knee-jerk anger or calm removal from anger-inducing situations?

Are you casting votes for being a life spectator or a life participant?

…Because one thing is for sure, our life is built on moments. One moment at a time, one building block at a time, we choose how we construct the building that is our life. The question is… what kind of quality are you getting from each of those moments?