12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
By Sid Madge, Meee
It has been a strange year but whether you celebrate Christmas or enjoy the festivities some other way there are still plenty ways to make the 2020 holidays special for you and your family.
I’m a great believer in the power of micro moments and tiny interventions. These are the small things we notice, the little shifts we can make, the seemingly tiny insights that will change our life for the better. Christmas won’t be the same this year – but it can be better!
Here are 12 one-minute tips to change your festive season. Some of these suggestions are pulled from my ‘Meee in a Minute’ books, each offering 60 one-minute micro-ideas and insights that can help us to shift our perception in life, family and at work. Why not try some of these in your family?
- Thanksgiving: If you do get to spend time with your family this Christmas, take a minute to tell each person what you missed most about them in 2020. They do something similar during Thanksgiving in America, and it’s nice to stop and appreciate loved ones – especially after such a challenging year. Research has shown that taking the time to consciously appreciate what we are grateful for, as little as once a week makes us happier, healthier and more satisfied with life.
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
- Present Recycling: Before you buy anything, have you ever received a gift you didn’t want or use? Take a minute to check if you stuffed it in the back of the wardrobe. Would anyone you know love that gift? Or even better, donate the gift to a local charity, so someone in need can receive it. You might not love it but someone else will.
- Discover Your Local Area: Instead of sitting down in front of the TV after you’ve eaten too much, assuming we are not in lockdown, get outside. Go for a walk and discover something new about where you live. If conditions permit, take a few minutes to have a snowball fight!
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
- Give Knowledge: Instead of buying a gift why not introduce a loved one to interesting knowledge or a fun new interest. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are everywhere. Take a minute to visit www.futurelearn.com or google ‘online courses’, browse the categories and sign up a friend or a family member to a new experience. Many of these courses are free. Who knows where they could lead – a new adventure? Certainly, more interesting than a new pair of socks.
- Homemade Secret Santa: Instead of buying something, why not make something. It could be edible or creative. Take a minute to think of what you could make that would make someone you love smile. Or, if that’s a bit challenging why not buy something basic and personalise it for your friend or family member? Probably best not to try this with your kids though!
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
- Buy local: So many businesses are struggling this year and the future is very uncertain. It’s not uncertain for Amazon – their profits have soared. Wherever you can, choose to shop local. Take a minute to consider what you could buy in local stores and little gift shops. Money that is spent locally stays locally and helps to keep those businesses afloat during a tough year.
- Focus on Expand-tations not Limitations. For so much of 2020 we’ve been limited to what we can do and who we can see. But, hopefully 2020 has also taught us that the things we thought were super important are not that important and the things we took for granted – friends and family – are where it’s at. Take a minute to consider what you’ve gained in 2020. Expand into the good stuff.
- Do more of what makes you happy: It’s been a tough year. But happiness is found in so much more than grand experiences or amazing achievements. Happiness is actually easier to find in the little moments – spending time with family, meeting friends (socially distanced of course), reading, listening to music, enjoying nice food or a good coffee. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, surely, it’s to relish in the simple things. Take a minute to write down a list of 10 things that make you happy. Do more of those things.
- Anti-Bucket List: As we near the end of the year it might be easy to focus on New Year’s Resolutions for next year. And let’s face it, beating 2020 isn’t going to be difficult. But instead of getting weighed down with what you might do, or should do, purge yourself of all the things you definitely won’t do, or don’t want to do. Liberate yourself from the ‘should of’s and focus on what you want.
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
- Make 2021 a Cracker: We live in strange times, lies and nonsense mixed with information is making truth hard to access. Take a few minutes each week to turn off social media and instead dive into TED. TED talks believe in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately the world. Use their ‘Surprise me’ feature where TED will randomly select a presentation for you to watch. Watch a different TED Talk every day.
- It’s Not About the Money: Above all else don’t overspend. Everyone you want to buy a present for already loves you. They will love you regardless of what you buy for them. And not one of those people would want you to feel some weird obligation to buy beyond your means and put unnecessary financial pressure on yourself and your family. Take a minute to breathe and remember it’s about love not money.
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
- Begin it: As 2021 marches closer – is there something you want to do but are scared it won’t work out? Perhaps you want to get fit or change career. If ever there was a time to explore that – it’s now. Take a minute to consider what you are putting off. Take one positive step toward that today and keep going.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sid Madge is founder of Meee (My Education Employment Enterprise) which draws on the best creativity and thinking from the worlds of branding, psychology, neuroscience, education and sociology, to help people achieve extraordinary lives.
To date, Meee has transformed the lives of over 20,000 people, from leaders of PLC’s and SME’s to parents, teachers, students, carers, the unemployed and prison inmates.
Sid Madge is also author of the ‘Meee in Minute’ series of books which each offer 60 ways to change your life, work-, or family-life in 60 seconds.
12 one-minute tips for an amazing festive season
Web: www.meee.global
Web: www.meeebooks.com
Twitter twitter.com/Meee_HQ
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MeeeHQ/
Instagram www.instagram.com/meeehq
YouTube https://youtu.be/fISupZWZMQc
TEDx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR3Cyjs62c8