How to Avoid the Holiday Madness and Enjoy Yourself

One big clue that we live in a strange world is for me the fact we even have expressions like “holiday madness” and articles like this one. What in the world is that? Aren’t holidays about rest, relaxation, fun? Have I missed some important lesson in school?

Left and right, I hear people talking about the upcoming holidays like they’re talking about a job they hate, about work they accepted by manipulation and actually wanna avoid.

Remember when you were a child? A holiday was simple: less school, more play, which equaled more fun. Then you grow up and something happens (other than the fact you find out Santa does not exist). You start turning a holiday into one big to do list, filled with things you must do, and you must get them right.

Here are just some of these things:

  • I must buy presents for everybody;
  • I must send emails, messages and postcards to everybody;
  • I must decorate the tree and the entire house;
  • I must prepare a big and lovely holiday dinner;
  • I must make sure all the right people are invited;
  • I must do charity and help others;
  • I must make a new year’s resolution.

And as if all of these are not pain provoking enough, you add the ultimate holidays’ expectations:

  • I must make the holidays special for me;
  • I must make the holidays special for the people around me;
  • I must enjoy the holidays;
  • I must make sure the people around me enjoy the holidays.

With all these “musts”, the concept of “holiday madness” is starting to make sense. You create it; in your head. You take holiday traditions and turn them into obligations; you take holiday wishes and turn them into desperate wants. After a holiday like this, you can’t wait to get back to work!

By this point, I’m positive you already have a good understanding of what the primary way to avoid holiday madness is: letting go of the imperative expectations about what you must do and what must happen during the holidays.

It’s a process. Like most personal development journeys, it starts in your head. This one with asking yourself what would happen if you would drop some of these tasks and expectations. What would happen if you stopped buying gifts to everybody? Would they really stop loving you? If they would, do you really want a type of love which is this fragile? What would happen if you skipped on the Christmas tree this year? Is this plant the main source of your potential holiday joy?

Once your shift in thinking is happening, you can start doing a behavior change. Do more of what you like, instead of what you used to think was required, and keep things simple. When you can avoid the holiday madness and actually enjoy yourself, you are going places.

Learn How to Have a Sense of Humor from James Bond

I’m a big fan of James Bond movies, especially the ones with Sean Connery. One thing I like about them is the witty, confident James Bond humor. Being a very analytical person, I’ve been studying it and trying to decode it.

The good news is there are patterns to the James Bond sense of humor, which you can discover and practice. In other words, you can learn how to have a sense of humor like 007. Here’s one piece of James Bond humor, in the movie Thunderball (1965):

What makes his line in this scene witty and funny? Well, the humor is created by a subtle yet powerful verbal technique: using a common expression with an uncommon meaning. When James Bond says “She’s just dead”, he’s actually using this expression with its literal meaning, not its figurative one that a person would expect. And you, the viewer, know it. That’s funny!

Take this technique to create humor and try it various situations, as part of your people skills development. You may find out it’s a great way for you to enhance your sense of humor.

Forget Achieving Life Balance and Try This Instead

Life balance is a weird idea for many, and especially those who want success or are into personal development will scratch their heads thinking about it. I just can’t imagine Bill Gates or Michael Jordan focusing on achieving life balance and still ending up where they are.

Yet, there seems to be something to this idea, as a lot of people with one-dimensional lives end up suffering from burnout or being unhappy. So, what’s the key to this riddle?

I think the whole concept of life balance is misguiding. It basically refers to splitting your time and your focus in a balanced way between o couple of major areas of you life: career, family and personal time usually. The premise is that ignoring one of these areas is dangerous and will end up making you feel miserable.

The big problem I have with this concept of life balance is that it treats these areas of life as ends in themselves. I see them as means to an end. And I see the end as… needs balance.

We humans, as evolved beings, have a couple of major needs. Here’s a way of splitting them up, of the top of my mind:

  • The basic needs for food, water, shelter, and adequate climate;
  • The need to be healthy and fit, psychically and mentally;
  • The need for learning and personal development;
  • The need for rest, relaxation and recreation;
  • The need to interact socially, to connect with others;
  • The need to achieve and to impact the world we live in.

The essence of a fulfilling life is in my perspective not balancing the areas of our life, but balancing taking care of these needs. And even this balance is a somewhat relative one, as the exact intensity of every one of those sets of needs will not be the same for a person.

The good news is that the world we life in offers many lifestyle options. We can create for ourselves all kinds of balanced or unbalanced combinations of activities related to career, family, hobbies, and end up achieving this relative needs balance. It’s really about fulfillment by finding those activities that allow you to make the most out of them and out of you.

Think of a person who is a book critic, and gets learning and personal development ideas by reading books, while also making money and impacting people by reviewing them. Two birds with one shot. Right now, I’m thinking of my salsa instructor whose job description involves a lot of going to salsa parties, dancing and socializing. Pretty cool, ha?

I believe you can even get needs balance without having a family, and you can get needs balance without having a job. At the same time, balancing the major life areas sometimes has a lot of chances of not creating needs balance.

This is why focusing on life balance can end up making you feel like there’s something missing in your life, and frustrated cause you don’t know why. Instead, focus on a personal needs balance rather then the development of life balance, and I think you’ll be just fine.