If you were making $100,000 per year at your job, a 0.05% raise would be $45.66. Would you work that hard for $45? If you spend 1,000 hours mastering a skill, and your teacher said you needed to put in 0.05% more effort, would you spend the 27 minutes required? There are 8,760 hours per year. At most, we celebrate two holidays per year. And each holiday consists of a party that lasts 4 hours - 0.05% of the year. Yet, for such an insignificant amount of time, a significant portion of our population becomes exceptionally anxious. Why do we stress over such an insignificant amount of time? The choice we get to make is to decide how we will spend our time. Being someone that lives with bipolar disorder, it doesn’t always feel like the choice is possible. But being someone that lives with bipolar disorder, I can tell you it is. How will you spend your day?

Now, we are in a time where the simplest activities can become the most complicated of drama. But they don’t have to be.Perfection is the acceptance of imperfection - nothing can be perfect; therefore, everything is perfect. Your family dinner will not resemble Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. It can’t be. Because Norman Rockwell is not designing your life - you get to do that.  Your time with loved ones will include all kinds of discussions across an array of topics - and that’s what people do when they get together.  People in your life may want alone time - and that’s a great way to self-care. “Holidays are for family” is a misnomer. The holiday season is for preparation and recognition. It’s for thinking about what’s to come and recognizing what was and is - but you can do that any time. So what are the holidays really for? Unless your religious, nothing that truly matters. Because what truly matters is what matters to you.  Keep your expectations in check.

When you run late for meetings, are you cursing yourself for being late?  When you make a silly mistake, are you telling yourself that you’re stupid?When you upset someone, are you telling yourself that you’re a terrible person?The way we talk to ourselves is far worse than how we would let someone talk to us. Why? Because we’re self-absorbed.  If I am late for a meeting with the CEO, I might curse myself for being late and update my resume. But if the CEO ran late, I would say, “oh, that’s okay - you’re a busy person.” Why does the CEO get the benefit of my doubt, but I don’t? Because we’re self-absorbed.We are self-absorbed in our worlds. We are thinking about how others perceive us if they were us. We are thinking that the person in front of us in line is moving slow to upset us.  The people upstairs are making noises to get back at us for making noise earlier.  The CEO acknowledged that I made it to the meeting late, and that’s their way of telling us that they noticed we were late.  What if the inner dialogue was different?  What if the CEO acknowledged that I arrived late, and it feels good to be noticed?What if the people upstairs are making noises, and that’s okay because I’m sometimes noisy myself?What if the person in front of us is moving slowly, and next time I’ll give myself a few more minutes so that I’m not late?What if I made a silly mistake, and now I know that I need to chose to be mindful about doing that thing better?What if you started talking to yourself the way you hope others talk to you?“If anyone talked to you like you talked to you, you wouldn’t be their friend.” - Shawn Wells as heard on Intelligence for Your Life (also from Grant Yourself Some Grace)

What is saying sorry for? Think of the last time someone said sorry to you. Did it change your life? After you received the apology, was everything suddenly fine? I believe that the act of apologizing has two purposes. First, it is for self-shame – to put oneself down and submit to the person they hurt. Second, I believe it’s for recognition – I acknowledge that I hurt you. Which intention matters? I argue that the way we use “sorry” is for recognition. To show others that we see that we caused them harm. And then, it’s for change. To show that we can control our behaviors and make changes for the better. Then why don’t we start saying, “I see you, I see what I did, and you can count on me to do better?” Because when we commit to doing better, we are on the hook. And we - people - don’t like to be on the hook. The real power in an apology is to put yourself on the hook for the future. If you want to get better at apologizing, stop saying sorry and start keeping promises.

Once you choose what you get to do next year, make a contract with yourself to follow through and do it!

It’s one thing to choose the path; it’s quite another to walk it. And if you think that you need to be motivated to do it, I argue that motivation comes from action.

The act of doing motivates you to keep doing.

If you are an ambitious person, I challenge you to choose your path for next year now and start doing it now. And then doing it tomorrow. And then do it the day after tomorrow.

Last year, around this time, I was writing about decision-making skills. The most popular post that month was about questioning - “Ways to Question.” Thinking about now, we’re seeing a similar genre, but a different style.Understanding the unknown, the what-ifs, requires you to discover and activate beautiful questions. Questions that bring you closer to what’s in front of you. Maybe there’s something about December that makes us more curious - or anxious.Have you noticed that loved ones become increasingly more stressed this month? They tend to hit the proverbial “brick wall” more often? Our hope for family time becomes so stressful that holidays are canceled? Then, as if it was magic, on January 1, you hear choruses of “new near, new me” across social media.  December sucks, but it doesn’t suck because of the stress. It sucks because we don’t realize what this stress is for. It’s for propelling you into something better.You get to use December to be curious about what lies ahead. You get to use that curiosity to think about what January will bring to you. You get to decide how you will show up. And then, hopefully, you follow through. You get to choose.  How are you going to spend the rest of this year? Stressing about the unknown? Or being curious about what lies ahead? You get to choose.

Starting a new job requires you to adopt the posture of a child. You don’t know what you don’t know - someone needs to guide you. But imagine how daunting it must be for the person that starts a new job, in a new industry, from home, and with limited guidance. I can imagine for that person, it’s near frightening. And I can imagine that we are in that situation more than care to be - 2021, what will it hold? Who will guide us through it? Will we see our families? Will a vaccine help or hurt? I challenge you that the angst and discomfort ought to be embraced. Let’s embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and what-ifs. Because if we do, we’ll have direction. Because embracing the unknown is stepping into - towards - possibility. Being in the posture of possibility is being endlessly curious. The question, “What will 2021 bring us?” turns into, “What will I do in January?” Then as January nears its end. you’ll ask, “what will I do in February?” And before you know it, your curiosity will have taken you through the entire year - time to start thinking about 2022. If you are feeling stuck, be curious about what’s immediately in front of you. Step towards it, and then step again.

I believe anybody can be creative. Like learning an instrument, it requires practice and dedication. How to become more creative?  Stop. Observe what you automatically do and think at that moment. Then ask why.  You’re at a stoplight, the car in front of you takes forever to turn - you get frusted. Why? Why did you get frustrated?  Was it the car moving slowly? Was it thinking that the driver should be more decisive? Was it that you’re running late?  Why ask why?  Because asking why makes you think about intent, and if you think about intent, you can then ask the most powerful question in creative thought - how.  How could a driver feel more secure in deciding to turn right?How could drivers make turns at faster speeds?How can I get to where I need to go faster?And if you ask how, you then get to ask - what if.  The process of becoming creative is not for artists. It’s for everyone - and it starts with stopping, listening, and being fearless enough to ask questions.

Does it anger you when you see progress stopped? When you see someone about to do something significant for others only to be stopped by a leader who says, “but before you do that, we need to set some rules.“That angers me. And it’s not the leader interfering that angers me - it’s the interference. And I anger because I care.Anger is for showing care. It’s for showing the world that what frustrates us – matters to us. It’s for communicating to others, “hey, can this matter to you too?“But, like foresight, anger stops becoming useful when it becomes excessive. Care. But care just enough.

Angst for what happens next, excitement for the new job, concern for a loved one, or fear of the unknown are all forms of hope. And hope piques curiosity, that pulls us into possibility and exploration. Hope offers us the opportunity to decide who we will become, who we will serve, and determine what matters.For all its good, hope does not predict the future. It does not make our fears real, our angst into anxiety, and nor does it turn our dreams into reality.  Like custard, hope is best in moderation.