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Renewal is a Christmas theme but whatever your religion or if you're an atheist like me, year-end is one of the few times our world slows down enough to offer a chance for renewal.
But many of us don’t make conscious effort to reinvigorate. Perhaps one or more of these might help.
List your dissipaters. List things that have dissipated you this year and how, moving forward, they could enervate you less. Examples:
- You have a frustrating boss or coworker. Want to try to switch? Spend less time with that person? Change your behavior? Change your attitude?
- You have a too-demanding friend or relative. Should you have a truly honest conversation to try to shrink the problem? Limit your time with that person? Cut him or her out of your life?
- You have an enemy. Should you try to work it out with the person? Emotionally insulate yourself from him or her, perhaps by feeling sympathy for the person? Often, enemies have an unhappy life and take out their misery on others.
- You’re facing an ongoing problem: health, a legal issue, whatever. Are you getting good-enough advice?
- Your substance abuse is taking a toll on you. So is it time to moderate your use? Quit? If so, do you think can simply force yourself to stop? If not, what do you think would most help you: a cognitive-behavioral therapist? A 12-step program? An informal buddy system?
- Your temper drains you. So should you make greater efforts to preempt losing it? You might start with my PsychologyToday.com article, A One-Minute Course in Anger Management.
- The news gets you down. Should replace some of your news consumption with something that inspires you, for example, reading the biography of someone you admire?
List your renewers. In the past, what has helped renew you? Here are examples to jump-start your thinking:
- a vacation
- meditation
- hiking or backpacking
- a new job or project
- going to a concert or listening to your favorite music at home,
- cleaning up your place,
- doing something creative like painting, writing, acting, or music.
- spending time with someone who believes in you.
The takeaway
There are no magic pills for renewal, especially in a world that spins ever faster. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a holiday season that fills up our emotional and physical gas tank for 2015. So, may you have an at least partially restorative holiday season.
Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.
