The Gifts We Give Ourselves

In the midst of the holiday season thoughts of gifts are in the air. Gifts we’d like to give to others and gifts we’d like to receive from others. But let’s not forget about the gifts that we can, and should, give to ourselves. I’m not speaking of physical gifts, although there’s always something we feel like we could use. I’m talking about the intangible things and those intangible things are some of the most important in terms of quality of life and happiness. I think that most of us feel a bit selfish when we start thinking about ourselves and not wanting to feel selfish we often fight that urge. It’s not selfish at all though to consider how may treat ourselves to something that will improve the quality of our lives.

In no particular order here are some ideas for intangible gifts that we can give to ourselves during whatever time of year it may be.

• Finish a project that you started at some point but suspended, for whatever reason, and have yet to restart.
• Eliminate a vicious cycle in your life that you know is hurting you in the long run but you haven’t yet had the will to stop.
• Start, or expand upon, a virtuous cycle that can improve the quality of your life.
• Deliberately set aside some free time to do whatever personally relaxes you and helps to reduce stress in your life.
• Make a plan to achieve something over the next twelve months that you’ve been longing to achieve and start to execute the plan right away.

Notice that the list above is a very broad one as I will leave it to your imagination to fill in the gaps. It can help to think of different facets of your life that are important to your quality of life such as the areas that I consider important, which are listed below.

• Physical, which encompasses things related to my body including my diet, eating habits, exercise and stress levels.
• Financial, which encompasses everything in my life related to money and building wealth.
• Relational, which encompasses my relationships with people including family, friends and romantic partners.
• Career, which encompasses everything in my life related to my job, professional skills and professional goals.
• Aspirational, which encompasses personal goals and wishes that are either long range or don’t fit into the other areas.

Make giving to yourself part of a yearly virtuous cycle. It’s also important to acknowledge and congratulate yourself at some point if you have gifted yourself in ways that I mentioned above. It’s okay to celebrate your successes. You deserve to acknowledge your achievements. For many people gifting to themselves and acknowledging themselves will represent a new way of thinking that may seem unusual. It’s the ego that may surface doubts as to whether these practices are worthwhile. Trust that they are worthwhile and I’ll be sure to expand upon the dangers of heeding your ego in a future post.