If Only Every Day was a Holiday

Holidays, sometimes very hectic, yet we are very thankful for them. They mean time spent with family and friends, time spent relaxing, time to spend a few minutes on ourselves. With any holiday that approaches, I know I get excited. I can’t wait to spend that extra time with my family. Because I’m on the road a lot and getting home at late hours, I look forward to a holiday that can be spent relaxing. It’s true, when I wake up on a holiday, I’m excited, feeling anxious and actually looking forward to the day ahead of me. Assuming most people feel the same way, how can we make it so every day is like a holiday?

Impossible you say. Actually, it doesn’t have to be. With the right frame of mind, you can make every day seem like a holiday. It starts with how you wake up that morning. Are you going to climb out of bed and think of all the miserable things in life and that overwhelming pile of work at the office? Or, are you going to wake up and think about another day you get to see your family, another day you can go out with friends after work or another day closer to your retirement. Making just an ordinary day feel like a holiday, means you are going to have to start off with a positive attitude.

I was watching a television show the other day, and there was a really positive lady on it. She was explaining how she thought her parents were the strictest when she was growing up, but now believes she’s even worse. More importantly though, she stressed on two key things she has been teaching her kids her whole life. The first was that they can’t say “I can’t afford that” or “I don’t have the money”, instead they were to say “what do I have to do so I can afford that”. I know money is a huge weight on our lives, but I think she has a point. If you really want something bad enough, you can find a way to afford it. Even if that means having two jobs, offering to babysit for others on weekends or working extra shifts/overtime. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but it will get you what you want.

Small lesson aside, she had an even more important rule for her kids. The second rule was that they could never complain about a situation. If something was happening that they didn’t like, she said they had a minute to moan and groan, but after that, no more. In fact, she made them find the silver lining in every situation so that they would look forward to it. They were to ask themselves “what will I learn from this” or “what is one good thing that will come out of this”.

When we look at how we face each day and how everyday never gives you the same feelings as a holiday, we can still make them out to be a good thing. Although facing it with a positive attitude is a key element, we can also do a few other things, like:

• Take a different way to work and enjoy the different views and people you see
   
• Plan a lunch date that you can look forward to all morning long
   
• Create challenging goals and deadlines for yourself so that it feels like a fun little competition while you complete your dreaded assignment
   
• Try and meet someone new that day, whether it’s at the local cafe in the morning, someone at work you’ve never spoken to or a parent at your child’s hockey game

There are many ways to make your day more exciting. And even though they might not peek your interest the same way a holiday does, you can still make the most of them. Remember though, it might not be easy to look forward to even the worst of days, but if you wake up on a positive note, find the silver lining and use a little creativity to change the pace of the day, you may find that your day doesn’t end on that bad of a note.

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"Gary Gzik is a Corporate Trainer and CEO of the business consulting company BizXcel Inc. which owns and operates Getting to Someday, a place where people go to achieve their goals and dreams.

Gary also wrote "The Orange Popsicle - Six Influential Lessons that will Inspire You to Change Your Life" and "The Power of RE - Recreate Your Life from the Inside-Out".

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