Celebrate!

How often do you celebrate? Chances are, not often enough. Most of us can remember to celebrate holidays (most of the time, anyway), personal events (birthdays, wedding anniversaries, divorces), and major career achievements (promotions, retirements, and the occasional layoff). But there are many more events to celebrate, and when we take time to mark them with the reverence they deserve, life is a lot more fun. Here are a few suggestions for celebrations that can lighten your workday.

Declare Thursday "Flower Day"

Buy (or pick) yourself some flowers. Get fancy if you want to. If you're having difficulty with this idea you're probably struggling with the image of carrying the flowers into the building from the parking lot in the morning. Not to worry, you can have them delivered. Maybe even ask the flower people to include a note: "With Love, George." Remember to sign your own actual name.

Leave work a half hour early

If you can't adjust your hours, this one won't work for you. But even if you do have that freedom, you still face some serious challenges, because there are millions of excuses available. Fortunately, every excuse has a workaround. If you have too much work to do, pick a day when you don't, or take some work home, or shorten your lunch, or start a half-hour earlier. If you have to pick up the kids, that's no problem — just make sure you arrive wherever they are on time. The extra half-hour is still yours. Be creative.

Celebrate personal successes

Celebration
lightens
your day.
After you
read this,
celebrate!

You just headed off a major confrontation, by pulling the right people together for some creative problem solving, and it worked. Even though others might not feel the need to make a formal celebration and hand you a plaque, you can do it yourself. It can be just you, or you can invite a few buddies. Probably you don't want to do the plaque thing though.

Celebrate the big little things

We're so used to celebrating only the events that touch others, we can have difficulty celebrating the events that touch only ourselves. Like making it through the past seven days reasonably happy, or without missing a meeting. Or without assaulting that guy who unnecessarily dragged out yesterday's staff meeting by a half-hour. Appreciate yourself not only for the good things you do, but also for the bad things you don't.

Science has determined that a normal human being's needs for celebrations averages 2.718 celebrations per week (not really!). Got yours yet this week? As for me, I'm celebrating finishing this essay! See you at the coffee bar at 4:30.  Top    Next Issue

Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

The Slippery Slope That Isn't

"If we promote you, we'll have to promote all of them, too." This "slippery-slope" tactic for winning debates works by exploiting our fears. Another in a series about rhetorical tricks that push our buttons.

Making Memories to Cherish

We all have cherished memories — lovely moments we can replay whenever we want to feel happy. How would you like to have a lot more of them?

First Aid for Wounded Conversations

Groups that meet regularly sometimes develop patterns of tense conversations that become obstacles to forward progress. Here are some ideas for releasing the tension.

Human Limitations and Meeting Agendas

Recent research has discovered a class of human limitations that constrain our ability to exert self-control and to make wise decisions. Accounting for these effects when we construct agendas can make meetings more productive and save us from ourselves.

Scope Creep and the Planning Fallacy

Much is known about scope creep, but it nevertheless occurs with such alarming frequency that in some organizations, it's a certainty. Perhaps what keeps us from controlling it better is that its causes can't be addressed with management methodology. Its causes might be, in part, psychological.

See also Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 8: The New Virtual Meeting: Digressions

The bane of meetings everywhere, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, has been digressions. But there are reasons to expect the incidence of digressions in meetings to increase now. What reasons could there be, and what can we do about digressions? Available here and by RSS on April 8.

And on April 15: Incompetence: Traps and Snares

Sometimes people judge as incompetent colleagues who are unprepared to carry out their responsibilities. Some of these "incompetents" are trapped or ensnared in incompetence, unable to acquire the ability to do their jobs. Available here and by RSS on April 15.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.