Create Your Best Holiday

Dec 25, 2019

How was it?

Whether it’s Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, New Year’s, even a birthday . . . sitting down to evaluate how things went is key to your future happiness (and body size).

Appreciating the good and acknowledging and tweaking the bad creates an ever-improving experience each year.

Ever-improving!

The cycle goes like this:

Plan as best you can
Be present for the experience
Debrief and learn

That’s it.

Once you have that process down, every event just gets better and better over time. Plus, you consciously find out what makes you happy and what doesn’t.

Many of us can plan.

Most of us try to be present.

But the debriefing step might get lost in the shuffle.

Not anymore.

Here’s your Easy Guide to Debriefing your Holiday.

All you need is pen and paper, your calendar and a couple of minutes.

Step 1: REFLECT

Think about your experience:

The planning leading up to it, the shopping, the prep, the guests, the food, the feeling, the activities, the atmosphere

What did you love? What will you want to do again?

Write down at least 5 things. More if you have ‘em.

What felt overwhelming? Difficult? Regret anything?

Write down as many as come to mind.

Step 2: REVISE

Brainstorm solutions for the aspects of Step 2 that you want to change for next year.

Step 3: REMIND

Write down a clear list of the things you enjoyed and the things to change and attach it to a specific day in next year’s calendar.

Without this step we’d forget it all and mindlessly repeat last year’s mistakes.

Writing it down AND marking it in your calendar will increase the odds you’ll use the information to improve the experience.

Make sure it’s a day ahead of when you need to act—so if it’s inviting different people, that will be weeks ahead. If it’s what not to buy again, that may be a few days ahead of the event.

You may want to just attach your note to the first day of the month so you can be reminded of the whole plan.

You do you, but just try something. It’ll be so worth it.

Taking a few minutes to evaluate your experience will pay off big time as the years unfold--making your Holidays Happier.

[By the way, this works for eating and your weight, too. Debriefing meals that go awry or some that went better than expected will concretely move your weight loss and maintenance in the right direction. Two for one!]

Create Your Best Holiday

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