What do you consider a special occasion?
In this video we'll be talking about making a special occasion calendar.
What is the special occasion calendar?
It's a short list of the most important events that happen in your life throughout the year. Your birthday, Christmas, your spouse's birthday, Thanksgiving, etc.
What's the point of the special occasion calendar?
To show you the frequency of your special occasions throughout the year and to show you what's actually worth celebrating and eating off plan throughout the year.
As I've said many times before, it isn't the single days of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays where we eat off plan that lead to health issues. If people were eating healthy the rest of the year and had whatever they wanted to eat on these single days way fewer would be overweight, sick, and diabetic.
The problem is that we've made special occasions way too frequent. For example, if you're special occasion calendar includes a legit special occasion once a week you're definition of a special occasion is way too broad.
Most people when they actually do this excercise only have 1-2 special occasions per month. This is just frequent enough to enjoy yourself, but just infrequent enough when it's a super frequent occurrence.
What about special occasions can't plan for? Engagements, promotions, etc. For those things list those types of occasions that would warrant a special occasion for food.
If you have 5-10 mins give the exercise a try. Just write down your list of special events throughout the year. It might not be quite as many as you'd think, and that ends up being a good thing. It means you can enjoy yourself on those days, and go back to eating healthy the rest of the time after they're done.
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2. You need to spend less time on activities/commitments that aren’t in line with your priorities. Cut out obligations that no longer serve you. This frees up time for the important stuff.
Resistance and uncertainty kick in when you have to make these types of decisions. Saying “no” to new things, and “breaking up” with existing commitments are uncomfortable tasks.
This journey is tricky because each part of the journey comes with it’s own flavor of resistance. Every step along the way is a “failure-point”. You need to navigate many barriers to follow through.
But with a thoughtful approach, the resistance melts away, freeing you to take action. On a personal level, this approach helped me quit a job without ruffling any feathers. It's also helped some Mindful Ambition community members de-commit from taxing obligations.
If you don’t already know of a commitment or behavior you need to “break-up” with, spend a bit of time with the 20 Minute Life Checkup. It helps you understand how you spend your time in relation to your priorities.
Priorities are a reliable filter for making decisions. If an obligation is taking up more time than it deserves based on it’s priority in your life, it’s time to cut it out!
The resistance
We’re raised to be polite and helpful and team-players. And those are good qualities! But they often delay the inevitable when it would be better to take action right away.
If you aren’t invested in a particular activity, it’s not worth it on either side.
For example, let’s say you hold a leadership position in a organization at your company. The organization wants someone committed who will try their hardest. When something isn’t a priority for you, chances are you aren’t doing your best work. There’s likely someone else who would be more invested in the role! It’s in the best interest of both parties for you to move on.
What to do about it
This framework follows a simple rule. It's worth it to invest your time and energy on activities when they meet two criteria:
