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Christmas and New Year’s Eve are two of the biggest holidays of the year. Aside from spending quality time with your family, storming the malls for sales and opening presents, and preparing a feast with fireworks, here are a few other things to do during the holiday season:
Reflect on your past and express Gratitude
Each year brings a great number of changes and experiences, both good and bad. Take a deep breath reflect on the lessons you’ve learned from the mistakes you made, and congratulate yourself for all the achievements you’ve completed this year.
Rest
Even if it’s only for a few days, free your mind from the rush and stress of work and take a break. Don’t worry about all the work you left behind as you’ll get back to it soon enough. Right now, it’s time to relax and enjoy the festivities.
Take a moment to Re-align with your life’s purpose
The holiday season is one of the rare opportunities you have to clear your head and reflect on things. When you’re free from the rush of preparing reports that nobody reads or spending hours on meetings that should have been an email, your mind is free to take a wider perspective of life. There’s a lot more to our existence than office work.
Wake up a bit earlier than usual (but not too early) and spend a holiday morning just thinking about things. Ask yourself this:
What fun things do you want to accomplish in the next few years?
Set Goals for Next Year
After pondering a bit, you probably found a list of things you want to do. Choose a few of them and make them your goals for the year, or in the next several.
Now, how do you get the ball rolling?
- Make a Solid Plan
- Think of Your Next Actions – David Allen said that you must plan the VERY NEXT Physical thing that you need to do to move the project forward, and do them (after the holiday break)!
Start Learning New Things
Now that you have listed a bunch of goals, what do you need to learn in order to accomplish them (more research and skill acquisition counts as a “Next Action”)?
Do you want to learn a new sport so you can get exercise and be healthier? Learn some recipes so you can cook more nutritious food? Learn how to invest in stocks or learn to start a side business?
Whatever it is, learning something new and useful will make you a greater person than you were before, and its effects get multiplied the more you learn and practice.
Start New Habits
New Year’s resolutions aren’t promises that are traditionally made to be broken – they’re prompts for growth and self-improvement. The best way to make a lasting change is to do something positive, and keep repeating it until it becomes an automatic habit.
Thoughts create actions, actions create habits, and habits form destinies. Jack Canfield recommends that you start at least four new positive habits every year – things like exercising for at least 15 minutes a day, saving and investing at least 10% of your income every paycheck, or reading one self-improvement book every month.
It may be difficult when you start, but do it consistently for at least 21 to 30 days and it will quickly become a habit. Start one every three months and you’ll start building a far greater life than what you had before. In just a few years, you’ll have achieved FAR more than what you would have if you’ve never started.