Freedom is found in applying the following principles:

1. Happiness is a choice I can make at any moment, regardless of circumstances. I don’t look outside of myself for happiness; I look within.

2. I recognize that any distress that I feel doesn’t come from what happens to me, but from the thoughts that I have about what happened. At the same time, I’m in full control of my thoughts.

3. I know that I can choose to act in a constructive manner, regardless of how I feel. Even if I can’t completely release any negative feelings I may be having, I can ask myself what needs to be done next, and I can go ahead and do it.

4. I define success for myself, instead of blindly chasing after society’s definition of success.

5. I know that remarkability lies in the edges. I allow myself to move toward the edge, and even beyond it.

6. I take responsibility for my life, and I understand that I create my life.

7. I decide what I want to create by setting goals that inspire me and fill me with a sense of purpose.

8. I decide how to use my resources—my time, energy, money, and so on. I choose to use my resources in order to move toward the attainment of my goals.

9. I know that it’s not about hoping for the right circumstances to present themselves, or waiting to acquire the necessary resources; it’s about creating the right circumstances and being more resourceful.

10. I don’t wait for a lucky break; I go out and make my own luck.

11. I live within my means. I keep my liquidity and remain nimble footed.

12. I create passive and residual sources of income so that I don’t have to trade my time for money.

13. I define “wealth” for myself, and I balance my material well-being with my spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being.

14. I clear my home from the accumulation of unused possessions and material things that clutter up my living space.

15. I don’t purchase material goods in order to impress others. I only acquire goods which I really need, or for the genuine enjoyment of the thing itself.

16. I don’t compare myself to others.

17. I place my attention on what I can control, instead of placing it on those things which I can’t control.

18. I know that I choose where to be, and I choose whether to stay or go.

19. I know that there is no such thing as the perfect life. I know that life is about setting goals which I consider to be meaningful, working toward achieving them, and enjoying the journey along the way.

20. I give myself the freedom to be less than perfect.

21. I release my need for ego self-aggrandizement and my need to uphold my own importance.

22. I simplify my life in every way I can.

23. I think for myself and I reach my own conclusions. I question the rules and the way things have always been done, and I decide for myself.

24. I work for the intrinsic satisfaction that comes from doing work that I love, not for external rewards or recognition.

25. I don’t wait to get permission from others in order to go after what I want; the only permission that I need is my own.

26. I allow myself the freedom to make mistakes. I don’t allow myself to be held prisoner by fear of failure.

27. I allow myself to be me; I’m true to myself. I’m not interested in being a second-class version of somebody else; I’m interested in being a first-class version of myself.

28. I don’t wait for something outside of myself to happen–such as getting a degree or a promotion, finding a life partner, or winning an award–, in order to feel good about myself. My self-esteem does not depend on external validation.

29. I question my beliefs to make sure that they’re serving me well. I’m not a slave to my current mental framework of how the world works.

30. I don’t listen to societal or cultural myths that try to dictate to me what I can or cannot do based on my gender, race, or age.

31. I treat my body with respect, care, and love, and I’m not interested in achieving some idealized version of what I should look like based on what’s portrayed in the media.

32. I’m comfortable setting boundaries and saying “no” to projects, tasks, and commitments that are not in alignment with my yearly and life goals.

33. I don’t worry about what others think of me. It’s OK if some people don’t like me.

34. I release myself from others’ expectations of me.

35. I don’t worry about trying to please everyone.

36. I release myself from past hurts and rid myself of any emotional baggage which may be weighing me down and holding me back. I refuse to hold on to grudges, harbor resentments, or nurse old wounds. I don’t allow the past to hold me captive.

37. I allow myself time for leisure and relaxation. I allow myself to have guilt-free play.

38. I don’t try to change the world; I focus on changing myself. I know that the best way to bring more peace, love, and tolerance into the world is to be more peaceful, more loving, and more tolerant.

39. I don’t struggle with the way things are. I know that everything in this moment is as it should be, and all I can do is take tiny steps toward creating a different future.

40. Just as I give myself the freedom to be who I am, I give others the freedom to be who they are.

Related Posts:

1. Get What You Want By Cultivating a Really Useful Attitude
2. 99 Powerful Questions to Ask to Turbocharge Your Life
3. How to Write a Personal Manifesto
4. 5 Life Lessons From Motivation Mega-Star Jim Rohn
5. 50 Characteristics of An Educated Person

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Have a great year by launching a 365-day project.

This year is almost over, and the new year is about to begin. Many people set New Year’s resolutions at this time. However, I propose that this year you do something a little bit different: launch a 365-day project.  That is, pick something that you’re going to do every single day in the new year.

You’re probably familiar with 365-day projects when it comes to photography–you take a picture every day for a year. However, 365-day projects aren’t limited to just photography. You can create a 365-day project for just about anything.

Ask yourself: “What is the most important thing that I want to accomplish in the new year?”  This could be something like the following:

• Improve your health.
• Become more disciplined.
• Become a better parent.
• Be a better spouse.
• Improve your financial situation.
• Express your creativity.
• Be happier.
• Write your novel.
• Become better educated.
• Improve your chess skills.
• Become more productive.

Go ahead and decide: what’s the most important objective that you hope to achieve in the new year. Once you’ve decided, ask yourself what action you could carry out on a daily basis in order to improve your performance in the area you’ve chosen. Here are twenty-six ideas:

1. Document the year by taking a photo a day. At the end of 2the year you can look through your gallery and remember what you did each day of the year. As an alternative, here are 365 topics — take a picture that represents the topic for each day.

2. Meditate every day for a year.

3. Write one page of your novel every day for a year. This writer achieved this by using the site 750words.com.

4. Read your child a bedtime story every day for a year.

5. Make a list of 20 small things that you enjoy doing, and make sure that you do at least one of these things every day of the year.

6. Start a gratitude journal and write down five things that you’re grateful for every day for a year. You could also follow John  Kralik’s lead–whom I wrote about in this post: “How Gratitude Can Change Your Life – 365 Thank Yous“–and write a thank you note every single day of the year. In addition, you can take a photograph of something that you’re grateful for every day for a year.

7. Do something creative every day for a year. On June 4th 2007, Noah Scalin made an orange paper skull and posted it online saying, “I’m making a skull a day for a year”. And that’s exactly what he did. He created a frosted cake with a skull on it for his birthday, he made a t-shirt with a skull on it on another day, he made a skull out of a tin can one day, and so on.

His project was so successful that he wrote a book titled, “365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!” In it, Noah encourages readers to choose a theme and make something every day for a year. Here are some people who have taken up Noah’s challenge:

• Blogger Char.L.Ton created burger artwork everyday for a year, utilizing various techniques and mediums. You can see the gallery here.
• Claudia Bear is creating tree-inspired art every day for a year.
• Lena created a star-a-day. I love this Book Sculpture Star she made, as well as this zentangle star.

8. Learn something new every day for a year. There are many ways to do this, including the following:

• Listen to a different TED.com talk every day for a year.
• Look up a new word in the dictionary every day for a year.
• Look up something new on Wikipedia every day for a year.
• Watch a video on Academic Earth every day for a year.

9. Go for a half-hour walk every day for a year.

10. Create a painting every day for a year. Here’s someone who did it: Betty Fernandez.

11. Stretch your comfort zone by taking on a new challenge–or doing something differently than you normally do– every day for a year.

12. Read 52 books–one a week–by reading every day for a year. You can also choose a particular subject that you want to become an expert on and choose 52 books on that one subject.

13. Cook a recipe from a cookbook every day for a year. Have you seen the movie “Julie & Julia”? It’s based on the true life story of blogger Julie Powell’s 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s first book. Do something similar: choose a cookbook that you love and resolve to try a different recipe from that cookbook every day of this year.

14. Talk to someone new every day for a year.

15. If you’re trying to grow your blog, write a blog post every day for a year.

16. Get organized and declutter your home by getting rid of–dispose, recycle or donate–one item a day, for a year.

17. Practice the piano for thirty minutes a day, every day for a year.

18. Set an hour aside every day of the year and devote it to creating a passive source of income.

19. Live your life like a Benedictine monk for a year by doing the following:

• Rise at the same hour each day (preferably early in the morning);
• Set specific times for each of your daily activities; during the time allotted for each activity focus on that activity to the exclusion of everything else; when the allotted time for an activity is over, stop and move on to the next activity for the day;
• Set a specific time for contemplation and meditation each day;
• Go to bed at the same time each night; and so on.

20. Create a spending plan (also known as a budget). Track every cent that you spend thoughout the year in order to make sure that you’re sticking to your spending plan.

21. Create a morning routine and follow it every day of the year.

22. Eat three servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables every day of the year.

23. Actively look for something positive in your partner every day of the calendar year and write it down.

24. Do a kind deed for someone every day of the year, even if it’s just sending a silent blessing to someone who looks like they need it.

25. Read Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”–which has 361 chapters–by reading one chapter a day. Here’s a blog post in which I explain how to set up this 365-day project.

I did this in 2017, and I’m very glad that I did!

26. Run a marathon every day for a year. Relax.  I added this one for comedic purposes. Although there’s someone who actually did this: Belgian athlete Stefaan Engels.

Conclusion

Whatever it is that you want to accomplish in the new year, you can increase your odds that you’ll get it done by carrying out some action related to your goal every day of the year. Here are some guidelines:

• Make sure that you choose a project that’s important to you so that you can keep your motivation high for an entire year. One year I made the mistake of choosing a 365-day project that I wasn’t particularly interested in: taking a photograph a day. I stopped after about thirty days. Choose a 365-day project that you find compelling!
• The action that you choose to carry out in order to move your project forward has to be small enough that you’ll be able to do it every day for a year. Don’t make it too ambitious or you’ll probably start out strong and then fizzle out by week two.
• Find a way to hold yourself accountable. For example, you can blog about your project (and if your project is interesting, you might even be able to turn it into a book deal).

This year I was really good about exercising, meditating, and eating fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. I plan to continue the trend in the new year.

What do you plan to do every day of the new year? Make it a great year by launching a 365-day project.

 

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It’s safe to say that most people want to be an educated person.

Last night I was asking myself these two questions: Who is an educated person? What does someone have to know in order to be considered an educated person? Look at the following:

• Do you need to have an advanced degree in order to be considered well-educated?
• Does it mean being prepared to join the work force?
• Are there certain books that you have to have read?

I did some research in order to be able to answer these questions. After reading several lists of the characteristics of an educated person—including Harvard and Princeton University’s lists–I came up with the a list of the 50 characteristics of an educated person.

50 Characteristics of an Educated Person

1. An educated person has the ability to think clearly and independently.

2. An educated person has good judgment.

3. An educated person knows how to learn.

4. An educated person knows how to acquire desired skills by identifying and utilizing available resources, deconstructing the process required for learning a particular skill, and experimenting with potential approaches.

5. An educated person has the ability to take initiative and work alone.

6. An educated person has the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas in writing, clearly and concisely.

7. An educated person has the ability to speak clearly.

8. An educated person has the ability to reason analytically and critically.

9. An educated person has the ability to think inductively and deductively.

10. An educated person questions assumptions.

11. An educated person doesn’t blindly accept what they are told; they go see for themselves. They can discern truth from error, regardless of the source.

12. An educated person knows how to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information (between the important and the trivial).

13. An educated person knows how to make productive use of knowledge; they know where to get the knowledge that they need, and they have the ability to organize that knowledge into a plan of action that is directed to a definite end.

14. An educated person understands human nature and has the ability to establish, maintain, and improve lasting relationships.

15. An educated person knows how to establish rapport with others; they know how get others to trust and respect them.

16. An educated person knows how to cooperate and collaborate effectively with others.

17. An educated person knows how to resolve conflicts with others.

18. An educated person knows how to persuade others.

19. An educated person has the ability to conceptualize and solve problems.

20. An educated person knows how to make decisions.

21. An educated person has the ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.

22. An educated person is able to cross disciplinary boundaries and explore problems and their solutions from multiple perspectives.

23. An educated person is someone who has been educated holistically: creatively, culturally, spiritually, morally, physically, technologically, and intellectually.

24. An educated person has a broad liberal-arts education. They have a good overview of the following subjects: the natural sciences; the social sciences; history; geography; literature; philosophy; and theology.

25. An educated person has depth of knowledge—that is, specialized knowledge–in a particular field.

26. An educated person has achieved victory over themselves; they know how to withstand discomfort in the short term in order to achieve important goals in the long term.

27. An educated person has the capacity to endure and persevere.

28. An educated person is self-aware; they know how to perceive and manage their own internal states and emotions.

29. An educated person knows where and how to focus their attention.

30. An educated person has ethical values and has integrity.

31. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to do what is right.

32. An educated person is well-read and has cultural sophistication.

33. An educated person has equal esteem for everyone, without regard to gender, race, religion, country of origin, and so on.

34. An educated person understands their obligation to leave the world a little better than they found it.

35. An educated person is capable of doing new things; they have the ability to generate ideas and turn them into reality. An educated person is innovative.

36. An educated person is one whose natural curiosity has been awakened with the purpose of satisfying that curiosity.

37. An educated person has the ability to identify needed behaviors and traits and turn them into habits.

38. An educated person has the ability to identify harmful behaviors and traits—including thinking habits that are not serving them well—and the ability to modify them.

39. An educated person has the ability to keep their life in proper balance.

40. An educated person has the flexibility to admit when they’re wrong.

41. An educated person has quantitative literacy; they know how to use arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and statistics to solve problems.

42. An educated person can speak at least one language other than their own.

43. An educated person has financial literacy; they have the knowledge necessary to make sound financial decisions.

44. An educated person is adaptable and knows how to deal with change.

45. An educated person knows how to handle ambiguity.

46. An educated person has the ability to explore alternative viewpoints.

47. An educated person has aesthetic appreciation; they can sing and dance well, play at least one musical instrument, and can appreciate architecture, great art, and other expressions of creative genius.

48. An educated person has developed the personal philosophy that will allow them to be happy and successful.

49. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to constantly improve.

50. An educated person has the ability to pursue lifelong learning.

Conclusion

I consider the 50 characteristics above to be those that are necessary in order to be a well educated person. In turn, being an educated person is an essential prerequisite for living your best life.

Related Posts:

• The Autodidact Manifesto – A Manifesto for Self-Learners
• How to Be Well Read
• 20 Ways to Become More Cultured
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Although most of us are enslaved by the clock, the fact is that linear time broken up into hours, minutes, and seconds is a creation of man.

Hunters and farmers needed a calendar of the seasons. They needed to be able to predict the coming of rain or snow, and of heat and cold. In addition, they needed to know when it was time to plant, and how long they had to wait until the next harvest.

Later on, in order to make it more convenient for people to meet and transact business, the calendar was further divided into days–based on the earth’s rotation–, and the days were divided into hours.

Today, the clock–a tool that was created to make life more convenient for humanity–has become a dreaded instrument that records time inexorably slipping by. However, there are ways to regain control of time and to remind ourselves that time is not rigid and unyielding; instead, time is elastic. Below you’ll find four ways to stretch your time.

Use Your Time to Work Toward Achieving Your Best Life

There’s an enormous difference between spending your time on 20 tasks that keep you busy, but are taking you nowhere, than it is to spend your time on 20 tasks that are moving you closer to achieving your life’s goals.

When planning your day you need to start with the big picture in mind. Follow these steps:

• Start by looking to the future and describing what your best life looks like.
• Then, set milestones toward creating that ideal life.
• As a third step, further break down these milestones into the smallest chunks you can think of.
• You then return to the present and plan each day based on the small steps you have identified which will steadily move you toward achieving your goals.

By planning each day based on the small things that you can do on that day to steadily move you toward achieving your short, mid, and long-term goals, and toward creating the ideal life you have envisioned, you’ll be making optimal use of your time.

Continually look to the future and see what the destination you’re aiming for looks like, and then return to the present and take the necessary steps to make it happen.

Apply the Law of Straight Lines

The Law of Straight Lines from Mark Joyner’s “Simpleology” points out that the shortest path between two points is a straight line–a basic principle of geometry. This law dictates that you should take the easiest, shortest, most direct route toward achieving your goals.

That is, as you go though your day you should make sure that the actions that you’re taking are necessary—and not “filler activities”. Also, your emphasis should be on taking effective action, defined as “action which moves you in the direction of getting what you want”.

The problem is, we’re bombarded by so many different distractions throughout our day that many times the straight line—the shortest route to achieve your goals–seizes to be obvious. People have a tendency to add unnecessary, ineffective steps to the route, such as:

• Spending time on low priority activities that could have been eliminated from your schedule all together.
• Wasting time chatting online with friends, twittering away, aimlessly surfing the net, and so on.
• Creating problems that don’t exist.
• Jumping around from activity to activity, starting several things but not getting any of them done.

Teresa Romain, Founder and President of “Access Abundance”, teaches a similar concept which she calls “a 2-degree shift”. To understand the concept of a 2-degree shift, do the following:

• Take a pencil and a piece of paper and draw a circle.
• Draw an “x” at the 12 o’clock mark and label it “true North”.
• At the 1:00 o’clock mark, draw another “x” and label it “magnetic North”.

Now suppose you’re at “magnetic North” and you want to be at “true North”. You could take the route which takes you 358 degrees clock-wise around the whole circle. This route is slow, discouraging, and tedious. In addition it’s so long, that you might never reach your intended destination.

Instead, you could simply do the 2-degree shift to the left and you would reach your goal, getting to “true North”, by a much shorter and quicker route. New habits, new thoughts, new beliefs, and new actions will allow you to find 2-degree shifts. Also, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the shortest route to achieving my objective?
• Am I taking any unnecessary detours?
• Is this action moving me in the direction of what I want?

Set Boundaries

People who don’t know how to set boundaries often discover that they don’t have time to do what’s important to them. In addition, they often feel overwhelmed, stressed, tired, and resentful. Inability to set proper boundaries can include all of the following:

• Failing to set a clear delineation between work and home life, which can result in being constantly “on the clock”.
• Having poor internal boundaries and thus letting what other people think of you and your abilities affect you negatively.
• Over-committing to others and under-committing to yourself.
• Being unable to say “no”.

Boundaries spring up from your lifestyle, your self-care, and your self-awareness. In addition, Karla McLaren, creator of “Energetic Boundaries”, suggests that in order to create strong boundaries when it comes to others you constantly repeat the following mantra: “I’m focused, I have things to do, and I’m on my way.”

Allow Yourself to Be Pulled Forward by Coincidences

A coincidence is the noteworthy alignment of two or more events by mere chance, or without obvious causal connection. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung devoted a large part of his work to the study of “meaningful coincidences”, or synchronicity, and how seemingly chance occurrences can move our lives forward significantly.

For example, you’re looking for work; while waiting for the bus you strike up a conversation with the gentleman waiting next to you; he tells you of a job opening in his office which is exactly what you’ve been looking for; you apply for the job and are hired. While you could have spent months looking for a job, this chance occurrence cut your waiting time drastically.

So, how can you foster coincidences in your life? By creating inner order–or putting yourself in harmony–you create an environment within yourself that attracts coincidences and synchronicity. You can create inner harmony through meditation, yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises, or even by spending time in mindful contemplation in nature.

Conclusion

Although we’ve grown accustomed to thinking of time as something that simply ticks away as we stand helplessly by, time is in effect malleable.  There are many ways to either speed it up or slow it down. The methods described above are four examples. Live your best life by taking advantage of the elasticity of time.

How do you make time more elastic? Please share in the comments section.

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It’s important to have fun at work.

Traditional wisdom states the following: “Work is not supposed to be fun. That’s why it’s called work.” A corollary of this principle states that if you see someone having fun at work, they’re slacking off. However, research shows that this dismal view of work is completely wrong.

In “The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up”, bestselling author Adrian Gostick and humorist Scott Christopher reveal how humor in the workplace has the following benefits:

• It helps build camaraderie.
• It increases productivity.
• It enhances employee satisfaction and loyalty.
• It encourages creativity and innovation for a better workplace and bigger profits.

According to Bob Pike, author of The Fun Minute Manager, a fun work environment is one in which formal and informal activities occur regularly that are designed to uplift people’s spirits and remind people of their value to their managers, their organization, and to each other.

These activities include:

• The use of humor;
• Games;
• Celebrations;
• Opportunities for self development; or
• Recognition of achievements and milestones.

Imagine waking up each morning looking forward to the fun that you’re going to have at work that day! This can become a reality. How? By coming up with ways to have fun at work. Here are 25 ideas to help you get started.

25 Ways to Have Fun at Work

1.Distribute Page-a-Day Calendars.

A company in California distributes page-a-day calendars on different subjects to employees at the beginning of each year. The subjects range from “Jeopardy,” to Dilbert cartoons, to gardening tips.

Since everyone’s calendar is different employees share the tips, jokes, or riddles that they get each day with everyone else. Follow their lead and do something similar.  (From “301 Ways to Have Fun at Work”).

2. Institute Pub Thursday.

On the third Thursday of the month, go to a pub for food and/or drinks and celebrate achievements, anniversaries, birthdays, and just making it through another month. (From “The Levity Effect”).

3.  Decorate the Workplace.

Allowing employees to decorate their workspace is a great morale booster. CNN iReport has a whole report dedicated to creative cubicles which you can take a look at here.  Three of my favorites are the following:

• Red Mahogany
• Serengeti Safari
• Collection Showcase

In addition: personalize your workspace with things such as the following:

• Family and pet photos.
• Fresh flowers.
• Bright colors that you enjoy.

4. Have Sports Tournaments.

Install a basketball hoop in the parking lot and start a tournament for employees during the lunch break. (From “301 Ways to Have Fun at Work”). Or, start a company softball league. Employees will have fun, they’ll become better team players, and they’ll even get exercise.

5. Goofing Around.

Organized goofing around can foster team spirit and increase creativity. Contests like relay races in office chairs and team Nerf gun fights help break up a workday and allow everyone to bring a renewed spirit to their work. (From “301 Ways to Have Fun at Work”).

6. Try Laughter Yoga.

Laughter yoga proponents argue that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. Have a Laughter Yoga session before each meeting to lower stress level and have more productive meetings that generate lots of creative ideas.

7.  Build a Wall of Fame. 

Designate a wall in the office as “The Wall of Fame”. Decorate it with awards, thank-you notes from clients, news clippings of your company’s successes, and so on.  (From “The Levity Effect”).

8. Create a Humor Bulletin Board.

Bring more humor into the workplace by starting a humor bulletin board. Make it a point to look for cartoons and jokes which poke fun at the circumstances that cause negativity or conflict in the office. Start with a blank board each Monday morning.

However, keep all of the old cartoons and jokes and put them together in a scrapbook. Award the scrapbook to the employee who does the most to foster good humor in the workplace. (Source).

9. Create a Bucket List Bulletin Board.

Hang up a whiteboard in a central area and write “Bucket List” in big black letters on it. Ask employees to write down an item that’s on their bucket list on the board. Another type of “collaboration board” you could set up is writing a question at the top of the board and encouraging employees to write down their answer.

10. Have a “Success Bell”.

Some companies have a “Success Bell” set  up in an accessible space of the workplace. When someone in the office helps a client or makes a new sale they ring a bell and everyone cheers. (Source).

11. Set Up a Humor Room

The benefits of laughter have been well-documented. So bring more laughter into the office by turning the coffee room into a humor room. Stock it with stand-up comedy routines on DVD or audio tapes. (Source).

12.Get Some Toys.

Mary Owen from Oracle Corp. says the following: “We are under a lot of pressure and toys are our comfort. We need them like Linus needs his blanket.”

Toys for the office can include koosh balls, pez dispensers, hula hoops, a sand tray, wooden blocks, origami paper, and so on.

13. Create Art Together.

Art can be therapeutic. Work together to create a mural on an office wall, or create some other type of art together. (From “The Levity Effect”).

14. Have Pizza and Ice Cream Socials.

Be one of those offices in which reaching impotent goals and milestones is celebrated. One idea is to have a pizza and ice cream social each time an important goal is reached.

15. Start an Employee Picture Wall.

Designate a wall of the office and fill it with employee photos. Take candid photos of employees at work and hand them up on the wall. You can also have themes. For example, one month have employees bring in photos of themselves as kids; another month, have everyone bring in a photo of themselves on vacation.

16. Have Regular Meetings That Are Not Business Related.

Once a quarter you can have a meeting that’s not business related. Here are some ideas on what to do during those meetings:

• Give juggling kits to all your employees and have a “meeting” in which everyone learns to juggle.  (From “Work Happy Now”).
• Give your employees improv training — it’s fun an it helps employees become more adaptable, improve their communications skills, and become better at public speaking.

17. Have Sword Fights.

When tensions get high at Social Sauce, a user-generated content and communication platform in New York City, employees break out foam swords.  Jenn de la Vega, a marketing assistant there, explains the following:

“In an office of mostly Internet and tech males, the sword fights diffuse tension by allowing coworkers to play similarly to the online games they play or develop.” (Source).

18. Solve a Riddle.

A high tech company in Reston, Virginia posts a riddle in their weekly newsletter. The first person to answer the riddle correctly receives a small gift valued at $5 or less. The gifts are often nostalgic toys, like a slinky, Play-Doh, and other items that can be played with or shared around the office.

A company representative stated, “Everyone in the office looks forward to seeing what is awarded that week. The toys often get passed around and borrowed. It’s a big hit!” (Source).

19. Send Employees Hand-Written Notes.

Colleen Barrett, who retired as CEO of Southwest Airlines, sent over 3,000 handwritten notes every month for nearly 30 years thanking employees for specific things they had done to improve the passenger experience for Southwest customers. (Source).

20. Start a “Fun Committee”.

A “fun committee” should be formed to find effective ways to add fun to work. The committee should consist of representatives from a wide range of departments, and committee membership should rotate. (Source).

21. Celebrate Employees’ Birthdays.

Celebrate birthdays once a month. Have cake and ice cream, and give those who are celebrating their birthday that month the opportunity to “Spin the Wheel” and win a prize.

22. Celebrate Employees Work Anniversaries.

Mark each employee’s anniversary with the company by giving them a small gift or a gift card.  The amount of the gift card can even be tied to the amount of years the employee has been with the company.

23. Allow Employees To be Spontaneous.

Spontaneity is an important element of fun. On a Southwest Airlines flight, Flight attendant David Holmes spontaneously decided to rap the safety instructions at the beginning of the flight. It was a big hit with passengers and now he does it all the time.

24. Blast Music.

At Microsoft they blast music at three o’clock when everyone’s energy is starting to slump: Some people get up and dance and everyone claps when the song is over.

25. Celebrate the Holidays as An Office.

Celebrate the holidays by having Secret Santas for Christmas (or having a cookie exchange), pumpkin decorating contests for Halloween, and a Turkey Trot for Thanksgiving.

Have Fun at Work – Bonus Ideas

26. Set Up a Game Room.

Put games in the break room. Get a ping-pong table or a Foosball table. Set up a chess set for a continuing game. Get a Wii to encourage exercise. You can even have a community jigsaw puzzle that people can work on during their coffee or lunch break.

27. Have a Talent Show.

Give employees the opportunity to showcase their talents on stage, whether playing an instrument, dancing, or doing magic tricks by setting up a talent show. This production also has a team-building component –employees from all departments will have to collaborate in order to organize the event.

Here’s a suggestion from Fastcompany.com: Bring a karaoke machine to the office and stage “American Idol” contests at lunch break.

28. Start a 30-Day Happiness Challenge.

In his book, “The Happiness Advantage”, Harvard-trained positive psychologist Shawn Achor explains that having happy employees gives companies a competitive advantage. He further argues that employees can rewire their brains for happiness by following 6 simple habits for a period of 30 days.

I explain what the six habits are in my post “6 Easy-Breezy Habits for a Rollickingly Happy Brain“. In addition, I created a Happiness Journal that can be used to document follow-through on the 6 habits for 30 days. Do the following:

• Download the happiness journal;
• Print it out and make copies;
• Spiral bind the journals; and
• Hand them out to your employees.

Thirty days later you’ll have happier, more productive, and more creative employees.

Conclusion

Right now you might be thinking, “I’d love to do these things at work, but I’m not the boss”.

If that’s the situation that you’re in, arm yourself with all the evidence that’s out there that proves that having fun at work makes employees more productive and more creative. Then, convince your boss to introduce some of the activities described above into the workplace.

Here are some more benefits of having fun at work:

• Play encourages us to approach opportunities instead of retreating.
• Play promotes exploration.
• Play induces the state of flow–the feeling of being totally absorbed in what you’re doing.

Most people will spend one-third of their working lives at work. If you’re not having fun at work, you should definitely start looking for ways to change that.  The 25 ideas presented above are a good place to start. Live your best life by having fun at work.

Related Posts:

• 10 Ways to Have More Fun and Play As An Adult
• How to Laugh More – 22 Ways to Bring More Laughter into Your Life
• How to Be Happy
• 75 Simple Pleasures – Enjoy the Little Things

A bucket list-or life list–is simply a list of life goals. Your bucket list should be filled with grand items, such as running a marathon in all fifty states or photographing elephants in at least ten African nations. However, you should also include small items, just because you want to do them.

Here are 67 things you can consider adding to your bucket list, just because.

1. Send a message in a bottle.

2. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.

3. Learn to juggle.

4. Create a set of cards with inspirational sayings on them and leave them in random places for strangers to find.

5. Learn the Heimlich maneuver.

6. Visit Abbey Road in London and re-create The Beatles’ cover.

7. Take pictures with your friends in a photo booth.

8. Let go of 99 red balloons.

9. Find someone’s lost pet (donate the reward to a charity of your choice).

10. See every Cirque du Soleil show.

11. Try every cheesecake The Cheesecake Factory makes.

12. Win a giant stuffed animal at a carnival.

13. Personally thank a 9/11 firefighter.

14. Pay for a stranger’s groceries.

15. Hug Mickey Mouse.

16. Learn to bartend like Tom Cruise in “Cocktail”.

17. Ride on the back of a motorcycle.

18. Ride a Vespa.

19. Get ice cream from an ice cream truck.

20. Write your name in wet cement.

21. Make a tie dye shirt.

22. Be the house on the block with the most Christmas lights.

23. Get a pair of plain white canvas shoes and draw on them.

24. Own the Crayola 120 count box.

25. Learn a card trick.

26. Break a piñata.

27. Fall asleep in a hammock.

28. Buy a lottery ticket.

29. Own a goldfish.

30. Visit a field of sunflowers.

31. Win a game of Monopoly.

32. Start a trend.

33. Wear a Dr. Seuss cat-in-the-hat in public.

34. Own a pair of superhero underwear.

35. Try vodka gummy bears.

36. Jump into a pool fully clothed.

37. Read a book a week for a year.

38. Be able to say the alphabet backwards.

39. Help someone to stop smoking.

40. Read every novel written by Stephen King.

41. Watch every James Bond movie.

42. Write a fan letter to your favorite Hollywood actor.

43. Go for 48 hours without saying a word.

44. Know at least one joke that you can tell really well.

45. Learn to use a fire extinguisher.

46. Give a meaningful toast.

47. Help someone apply and get into college.

48. Write a list of 101 life lessons you’ve learned so far, and share it with the world.

49. Try archery.

50. Watch the sun rise and set on the same day.

51. Craft a balloon animal.

52. Help someone to cross an item off of their bucket list.

53. Sell something on eBay.

54. Finish a 1000 piece puzzle.

55. Read “The Hunting Games” trilogy.

56. Have a street artist paint a caricature of you.

57. Give a waiter a $100 tip.

58. Sit on a jury.

59. Bury a time capsule.

60. Attend a Murder Mystery dinner.

61. Make a working volcano.

62. Learn to use chopsticks.

63. Take a week-long technology hiatus.

64. Draw a mustache on someone while they’re sleeping.

65. Come up with a list of 100 money-making ideas; try at least one thing on the list.

66. Photobomb someone (jump into the photo just as it’s being shot).

67. Find the meaning of your name.

Of course, the idea isn’t just to write a bucket list, but to complete it. Get to work crossing items off of your bucket list, today.

Please add any ideas you may have in the comments section.

Related Posts:

1. Six Videos to Inspire Your Bucket List
2. 525+ Ideas for Your Bucket List
3. 75 Ideas for Your Music, Song, and Dance Bucket List
4. Adventure Quotes: 50 Quotes on Living a Life of Adventure
5. Reverse Bucket List: 50 Things I’ve Already Done

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It’s the holiday season; a time for cheer and joy.

However, it can also be a time of stress–chaotic shopping malls filled with harried shoppers–; feelings of loss–remembering loved ones who are no longer with us–; and disappointment–not being able to afford the items we see displayed all around us.

Around this time of year many people come down with the holiday blues. Symptoms can include headaches, insomnia, fatigue, restlessness, boredom, and a general feeling of sadness. Fortunately, there are many ways to lift your spirits and enjoy the holiday season, in spite of all the hectiness and regardless of the circumstances you might be currently facing. Below you’ll find eight ways to beat the holiday blues and get into the swing of the holidays.

1. Alter your image of the “ideal Christmas”.

Many people create a picture in their minds of what the “ideal Christmas” (or holiday) looks like. More often than not, this vision is probably based on idealized memories of childhood Christmases. Then, when they can’t reproduce this vision, they feel dissatisfied with their current reality.

Also, a lot of people feel that the holiday season has to be perfect; and, of course, perfection is unattainable. Forget the images you have in your head of a “Norman Rockwell Christmas” and be honest with yourself about what you can realistically achieve during the holiday season. Be kind to yourself and remember to set achievable goals. For example, avoid the following:

• Don’t commit to cooking a seven-course Christmas dinner for fourteen people all by yourself.
• Don’t accept every holiday party invitation that you receive when you’d rather spend some alone time with your spouse.
• Don’t feel that you have to get a present for your cousin three times removed whom you haven’t seen in the past five years.

You need to pace yourself, stick to your budget, and get enough rest.

2. Do something creative and flow-inducing that’s holiday-related.

I’ve written about the state of flow before–a state in which you’re fully immersed in the activity that you’re carrying out–, and how it’s conducive to happiness. Doing something creative is a great way to enter the flow state.

Here are some examples of creative activities you can carry out for the holidays:

• If you enjoy writing, brainstorm a list of words that remind you of the holidays and write a short story using as many of those words as you can. Some words you can use are the following: snow; tinsel; presents; bells; angels; Santa Claus; family; ornaments; turkey; tree; cinnamon; carols; red and green; manger; winter; glitter; star; reindeer.
• Also for writers, write an acrostic poem using the word “Christmas”, or another holiday-related word. (An acrostic is a poem in which the first letters of each line spell out a word or phrase.)
• If you enjoy music, compose a holiday song, make a video of you singing it, and put it up on YouTube (here’s one that one of my readers made).
• If you enjoy drawing, make your own holiday cards.
• If you enjoy cooking or baking, bake lots of Christmas cookies and share them with whomever looks like they need a cookie. Or, try a new recipe to make on Christmas Eve.

There’s lots of ways to get creative during the holidays.

3. Every day in December, practice a random act of kindness.

Doing good for others is something else that’s associated with happiness. A great idea is to create an advent calendar of random acts of kindness: every day you uncover a kindness “task” that you have to perform on that day. I found two examples online:

• Here’s a list of  40 Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, with ideas such as these three: call someone who’s alone; hold the door open for someone; offer to help someone who looks like they’re in need of assistance.
• This blog has an advent calendar on it, with a random act of kindness for each day.

There are many ways you can help others during the holidays, such as the following:

• Gathering toys your kids no longer play with and donating them to children who would otherwise not get any toys for Christmas.
• You can also put together a basket filled with all the traditional staples of a Christmas dinner and take it to a family that’s going through a rough patch.
• Or simply help someone who’s overwhelmed with some of their holiday chores.

Doing for others this holiday season will surely boost your mood and help you to shake off the holiday blues.

4. Spend time with loved ones.

Another key aspect of happiness is strengthening your relationships with those people that are important to you. You may not be able to afford to get your loved ones expensive gifts this holiday season, but you can spend time with them. Here are some ideas on things you can do:

• Host a Christmas movie marathon and invite your best friends in the whole world. Watch movies such as “Miracle on 34th Street”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “A Christmas Story”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, and so on. Make it a potluck.
• Offer to baby-sit your nieces and nephews so that their parents can go out and get their holiday shopping done. Of course, what this actually translates to is getting to spend time with the little urchins. Take a Christmas Activity book with you, and you’re all set.
• Have a gift wrapping party: get together with your siblings, make some wassail–which is just a fancy name for holiday punch–, put on some Christmas music, and get to  work wrapping presents.

5. Find DIY alternatives. Make your immediate surroundings as beautiful and comforting as you can. Who cares if you can’t afford the ornaments you see in fancy magazines or in expensive stores! Make your own ornaments:

• Have you ever thought of using seashells to make Christmas ornaments? Here’s a tutorial that will show you how: Seashell Christmas Ornaments.
• In addition, you can use cookie cutters to make ornaments.
• There’s also the traditional stringing of popcorn and cranberries.

At the end of the day you’ll probably appreciate these ornaments even more than store-bought ones, since you made them yourself. Studies show that we value objects that we build more than objects we simply possess. In addition, if you make the ornaments with your kids you’ll be creating memories with them.

Think of this quote by Gladys Bagg Taber:

“Best of all are the decorations the grandchildren have made, fat little stars and rather crooked Santas, . .”

6. Focus on what’s good this holiday season.

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar teaches a course at Harvard University on “Positive Psychology” which, at its height, was the university’s most popular offering. One of the happiness tips he offers is to keep in mind that being happy is mostly dependent on our interpretation of the events going on around us.

In addition, Daniel Gilbert, author of “Stumbling on Happiness”, reminds us that reality is a movie being generated by our minds. That is, barring extreme circumstances, our level of well-being is determined by what we focus on and on how we choose to interpret events.

So, instead of focusing on Christmas traditions that you won’t be able to celebrate this holiday, for whatever reason, concentrate on creating new traditions instead. Here’s a few ideas:

• Go to the local church holiday play.
• Attend a Christmas costume party in which the proceeds from ticket sales go to a children’s charity (everyone dresses up as Santas, elves, candy canes, and so on).
• Have the youngest member of the house ring a bell on Christmas Eve as everyone goes to bed to signal to Santa that he can come now.
• Every day in December read a Christmas-themed book or a Christmas story to your kids.

7. Go through the motions.

Taking action is one of the best ways to beat the blues. Make a list of twenty Christmas activities that you enjoy and make yourself participate in them. Here are some things that might make it onto your list:

• Go out for a drive at night and look at all of the Christmas lights.
• Listen to your favorite Christmas Carols, such as: “Jingle Bells”, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”, “Oh Tannenbaum”, and “Deck the Halls”. Make sure to sing along.
• Decorate your Christmas tree and then have a moment of tree appreciation; sit on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa, just admiring the tree.
• Include eating your favorite holiday foods on the list (for me that would be tamales, ham, and turkey).

Don’t wait to be in the Christmas spirit before you participate in these activities. Instead, use these activities in order to get yourself into the Christmas spirit.

8. Shift your perspective.

Instead of  focusing on the consumerist aspects of Christmas, think of what the holidays are really about. Remember what the Grinch discovered: “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” You can even make yourself a little sign so that you don’t forget.

Conclusion

‘Tis the season to be joyful and merry. You can make it so despite any trials or tribulations you may currently be facing. Use the tips above to make this Christmas a good one.

 

Related Posts:

• 50 Christmas Traditions For Having Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• Holiday Gift Ideas for Self-Improvement Enthusiasts
• 10 Ways to Have a Peaceful Christmas
• 25 Activities Filled With Christmas Cheer
• 19 Christmas Stories and Poems by Famous Authors

Motivation is the force that propels you to take action to achieve your goals.

Whatever your goal is, the only way you’ll be able to achieve it is by finding the motivation to take consistent action. Fortunately, there are many steps that you can take to generate motivation.

Below you’ll discover 7 ways to supercharge your motivation.

1. Forget about your goal (just for the time being). Instead, make the process that you need to follow in order to reach your goal as pleasurable as possible. If the process isn’t fun—whether it’s sitting down each morning to write in order to finish your novel, or going out for a daily run in order to complete a marathon—figure out why not. Then, find a way to make it fun!

As an illustration, if your goal is to run a marathon, here are four ways to make your runs more fun:

• Make a playlist of songs that pump you up which you can listen to as you run.
• Find a scenic running route so that you can enjoy the view as you work out.
• Turn it into a game: time your runs; each day, try to beat the previous day’s performance.
• Add segments to your runs: run for a few minutes by raising your knees a little higher, run uphill, leap over puddles, and so on.

2. Follow the Arnold Schwarzenegger approach to goal achievement. Even if you’re not an Arnold fan, let’s face it, the man knows how to achieve goals. In his 2009 Commencement Speech at USC, Arnold told the recent graduates that when he set the goal of becoming a body building champion as a teenager, he did the following:

“Right next to my bed there was this big wall that I decorated all with pictures. I hung up pictures of strongmen and bodybuilders and wrestlers and boxers and so on.”

By surrounding yourself with images of the goal that you want to achieve, you make sure that you’re always keeping your goal in mind. This means that your brain will be working on how to achieve your goal in a subconscious way round the clock. When you’re constantly coming up with ideas on how to move toward your goal, you’ll be motivated to take consistent action.

3. Improve Your Diet. The show “Frasier” is one of my favorite TV shows (although the show was cancelled many years ago, I still watch the re-runs all the time). It’s about radio psychologist Dr. Frasier Crane. In one episode Frasier is giving his talk show and he’s invited another doctor to be a guest on the show. A woman calls into the show complaining that she has trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

Frasier tells the caller that wanting to stay in bed is similar to the desire to regress to the womb, and that there was something in her life that she was trying to retreat from. He recommends that she go into therapy in order to discover the unconscious fear that was making her want to stay in bed. Then the other doctor chimes in with the following:

“You are good, Dr. Crane.  The first thing that came to my head was that she might be a little hypoglycemic, I’d have suggested some protein in the morning.”

At this point the woman caller exclaims that the previous Thursday she had eaten eggs as soon as she woke up; she was able to get out of bed without any trouble and had felt great all day. She scolds Dr. Crane for scaring her, thanks the other doctor, and hangs up.

The point that I’m trying to make with this anecdote is that sometimes your lack of motivation isn’t mental or emotional, but physical. A lack of physical energy can be the reason behind your lack of motivation. In order to keep your motivation high, make sure that you’re eating in a way that’s right for you, and which keeps your physical energy high.

4. Make the goal smaller. One of the key elements that will determine how motivated you’ll be to take action toward the achievement of your goal is whether or not you expect to succeed. Imagine that you set a big goal that makes you feel the following:

• Deep down inside you feel that the goal is simply out of your reach.
• You feel that no matter what you do you’ll never be able to achieve this goal.

Do you think you’ll be very motivated to get up and do the work necessary in order to achieve this goal? Of course not. If this is the case, then you need to set a smaller goal which you can get yourself to believe is within your ability to attain.

5. Make the goal bigger. Yes, I realize this is the exact opposite of the point I made above. However, as Gretchen Rubin points out, one of the secrets of adulthood is that the opposite of a great truth is also true. Sometimes you can’t get yourself motivated to pursue a goal because the goal simply isn’t a challenge for you. That is, it just doesn’t excite you. If that’s the case, you need to raise the bar.

6. Increase the reward. The bigger the anticipated reward of achieving a goal, the more motivated you’ll be to get to it. For example, if you’re trying to motivate yourself to run a marathon, ask yourself how you can make the reward that you’ll receive for running a marathon as big as possible. Here are some ideas:

• Set a weight loss goal that you want to reach through the process of training for a marathon and go out and get the pair of jeans that you’re going to be able to fit into when you reach your target weight.
• Find a marathon that donates entrance fees to a cause that you believe in.
• As you train for the marathon, simultaneously write an eBook on all the steps that you’re taking. Then, when you run the marathon, you can sell your eBook to others like you who have always wanted to run a marathon but aren’t sure what to do.

Look at how big your reward for running a marathon is going to be now: you’re going to achieve your weight loss goal and be able to fit into those great jeans, you’re going to help raise money for a cause that you believe in, and you’re going to make money from your eBook.

7. Try immersion therapy. Immersion is about jumping in with both feet; it’s making an intense effort and tackling your goal from many different angles. As an example, a few years back I had gained a lot of weight, and I set the goal of losing forty pounds. In order to achieve my goal I did all of the following:

• I bought and read a book on how to counter emotional eating.
• I set an appointment with a nutritionist who created a diet for me to follow.
• I bought fitness magazines.
• I joined a gym.
• I hired a personal trainer.
• I started getting weekly weight loss massages.

By completely immersing myself in my goal of losing forty pounds I was able to find the motivation to modify my eating habits and begin exercising on a regular basis. And I did lose the forty pounds.

Another area in which immersion therapy works wonders is learning a new language. If you set the goal of learning Italian—for example—do all of the following:

• Enroll in an Italian language course.
• Buy Italian language tapes and listen to them during your commute, as you do the laundry, as you do yard work, and so on.
• Go on YouTube and look for Italian songs you can listen to, such as songs by Eros Ramazzotti or Tiziano Ferro.
• Watch Italian movies such as “La Strada” and “Profumo di Donna”.
• Go to Italian restaurants where the owners and waiters are Italian and try ordering in Italian.

By the way, the process above is similar to the process that I followed in order to learn Italian in preparation for a year-long trip that I was taking to Italy after my college graduation.

The way that I think about immersion is as if you’re walking into the goal, instead of just talking about a goal that’s somewhere outside of you. That is, you’re living the goal by having props, reminders, incentives, and so on related to the goal all around you, at all times.

Conclusion

What goal are you trying to achieve, but haven’t been able to muster up the motivation to get going? Do you see any ideas in this post that you think might help you to get motivated? Achieve your goals by supercharging your motivation.

Related Posts:

1. Three Superb Exercises For Boosting Your Self-Esteem
2. 50 Quotes on Letting Go of the Past
3. 99 Powerful Questions to Ask to Turbocharge Your Life
4. Seven Ways to Overcome Inertia and Get Yourself Unstuck
5. How to Write a Personal Manifesto

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“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” . . .

Here, then, are 48 joyous Christmas quotes to brighten the season and get you into the Christmas spirit:

1. “I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays – let them overtake me unexpectedly – waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: ‘Why, this is Christmas Day!’” ~ David Grayson

2. “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.”

~ Meredith Willson, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”

3. “Christmas gift suggestions: to your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.”

~ Oren Arnold

5. “Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.” ~ Peg Bracken

6. “Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.” ~ Francis C. Farley

7. “It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.” ~ W.T. Ellis

8. “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

9. “Christmas now surrounds us,
Happiness is everywhere
Our hands are busy with many tasks
As carols fill the air.”

~ Shirley Sallay

10. “Each sight, each sound of Christmas
And fragrances sublime
Make hearts and faces happy
This glorious Christmastime.”

~ Carice Williams

Related: 19 Christmas Stories and Poems by Famous Authors

11. “Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!” ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

12. “Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.” ~ Janice Maeditere

13. “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” ~ Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby

14. “I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.” ~ Harlan Miller

15. “Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving, and of families united.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

16. “Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.” ~ Ruth Carter Stapleton

17. “Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.”

~ Martin Luther

18. “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” ~ Burton Hillis

Related: 50 Christmas Traditions For Having Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

19. “Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don’t quite know how to put our love into words.” ~ Harlan Miller

20. “For centuries men have kept an appointment with Christmas. Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving, a time of good cheer, home.” ~ W. J. Tucker

21. “Christmas is not just a time for festivity and merry making. It is more than that. It is a time for the contemplation of eternal things. The Christmas spirit is a spirit of giving and forgiving.” ~ J. C. Penney

22. “I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

23. “I love the Christmas-tide, and yet,
I notice this, each year I live;
I always like the gifts I get,
But how I love the gifts I give!”

~ Carolyn Wells

24. “Mankind is a great, an immense family. This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.” ~ Pope John XXIII

25. “Let us have music for Christmas…
Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth;
Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts,
To bring peace to men on earth.”

~ Mildred L. Jarrell

26. “Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” ~ Calvin Coolidge

Related: Eight Ways to Beat the Holiday Blues

27. “I don’t think Christmas is necessarily about things. It’s about being good to one another, it’s about the Christian ethic, it’s about kindness.” ~ Carrie Fisher

28. “What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.” ~ Agnes M. Pharo

29. “May Christmas lend a special charm
To all you chance to do.
And may the season light your way
To hopes and dreams anew.”

~ Garnett Ann Schultz, “My Christmas Wish”

30. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know,
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

~ Irving Berlin

31. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” ~ Charles Dickens, Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

32. “And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” ~ Dr Seuss

33. “The merry family gatherings–
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.

For Christmas is tradition time–
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.”

~ Helen Lowrie Marshall

34. “Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself.”

~ Norman Wesley Brooks, “Let Every Day Be Christmas”

Related: 25 Activities Filled With Christmas Cheer

35. “This time of year means being kind
to everyone we meet,
To share a smile with strangers
we may pass along the street.”

~ Betty Black

36. “Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display–so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn’t the holly, it isn’t the snow. It isn’t the tree not the firelight’s glow. It’s the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again.” ~ Unknown

37. “There is a Christmas song upon the air,
There is a joy innate within the heart;
An inner sense of peace, a holy light
Illumines life and sets these days apart.”

~ Edna Greene Hines

38. “I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.” ~ Taylor Caldwell

39. “Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love.” ~ Lucinda Franks

40. “Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world – stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.” ~ Henry Van Dyke

41. “Ask your children two questions this Christmas. First: What do you want to give to others for Christmas? Second: What do you want for Christmas? The first fosters generosity of heart and an outward focus. The second can breed selfishness if not tempered by the first.”

~ Author Unknown

42. “Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind; Teach us to be patient and always to be kind.” ~ Helen Steiner Rice

43. “Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given–when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes.” ~ Joan Winmill Brown

44. “Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.” ~ Augusta E. Rundel

Related: 10 Ways to Have a Peaceful Christmas

45. “Christmas day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both.” ~ Phillips Brooks

46. “Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or word or deed in every gift that he bestows.” Edwin Osgood Grover

47. “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” ~ Charles Schulz

48. “Christmas, my child, is love in action.” ~ Dale Evans

49. “Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him–and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.” ~ Max Lucado

50. “Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” ~ Steve Maraboli

51. “My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?” ~ Bob Hope

52. “Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

53. “I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, “Christmas Bells”

54. “Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love.” – LUCINDA FRANKS, New York Times, Dec. 23, 1984

55. “Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.” – CALVIN COOLIDGE, Presidential message, Dec. 25, 1927

56. “I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world.” – Norman Vincent Peale

57. “They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart.” Paul M. Ell

Here are more Christmas posts you’ll enjoy:

• 50 Christmas Traditions For Having Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• Eight Ways to Beat the Holiday Blues
• 10 Ways to Have a Peaceful Christmas
• 25 Activities Filled With Christmas Cheer
• 19 Christmas Stories and Poems by Famous Authors