In every culture, nation, and religion there are special times set aside to celebrate life or some significant event. We generally refer to these special times as holidays. Have you ever wondered why people get so excited about holidays? Think for a moment about the role they play on an emotional level.
A break from the norm
Emotionally, holidays feel like a reward. Instead of working, those days are used for enjoyable activities like getting together with friends or family, having exceptional meals, or going on a vacation. It’s like being rewarded for all your hard work.
It’s a fact that everyone likes to be rewarded for their efforts and accomplishments. In fact, almost without exception effort is motivated by the prospect of some kind of reward. Taking time off from your normal routine to have fun and celebrate life fits into this “reward” category.
Rewards come in all shapes and sizes
Some rewards have material value while others have emotional value. Most people go to work primarily for the material reward that comes in the form of a paycheck. Others, a happy minority, love what they do so much that the monetary reward is secondary to the feelings of accomplishment they experience.
When we do something nice for someone we love, our reward may be as simple as a smile on their face. Making them feel good makes us happy, thus we are emotionally rewarded as well. This action-reward feedback loop is an intrinsic part of human nature and is closely related to the joy of giving and receiving.
Make your special times to celebrate life
For the most part, holidays are set by someone else. I’d like to propose a slightly different concept. I think that we should all get in the habit of rewarding ourselves for, and celebrating, our personal accomplishments.
No doubt, you have experienced some forward progress in your personal growth and development recently. Maybe you overcame some personal obstacle, or experienced a personal breakthrough of some kind. Perhaps you are making progress on a personal or professional goal.
Why not celebrate that?
Any time we succeed in elevating the quality of our life in some way, celebration is in order. You see, celebrating is one of the ways we give ourselves approval. Whenever you find yourself reflecting on your accomplishments, it’s time to stop and celebrate life. Doing so will funnel massive amounts of approval into your neurological feedback loop.
Celebrating is an effective way to anchor your efforts in positive emotions. More approval brings increased motivation to continue taking action. Increased action creates even more reasons for giving yourself approval. It’s a beautiful arrangement.
Feed the process
Without a built-in delivery system for receiving approval, motivation begins to fade. By celebrating our personal progress we are providing the approval needed to stay motivated.
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate” -Oprah Winfrey
Personal development is a never-ending journey that pays giant dividends. Approval is the oil that keeps the whole process running smooth. So don’t wait for someone else to schedule a holiday, find your own ways to celebrate life, blessings, and accomplishments. It’s perfectly okay to let yourself know how much you approve.
How do you feel about personal celebration?
Are you ready to create your own holidays?
The lines are open!
If you enjoyed this article, consider email or RSS updates!
The mission of this site is to provide you with all the right strategies and resources to promote and encourage positive change in your life. All of the articles, 
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I always think your birthday is a great personal holiday. What better reason to celebrate than simply being alive and able to enjoy another year of life, learning and loving! And any personal development milestone is worth celebrating, like the day you really discover who you are, which is also like a day of being re-born and beginning to experience life in a new way, just like a newborn experiences life outside of the womb for the first time.
~ Kristi
.-= Kikolani´s last blog ..Fetching Friday – Resources Mashup, #FollowFriday, & Some Tennis Love =-.
Hi Kristi, before I could reply I had to go read the new issue of Fetching Friday. It’s wonderful to interact with people who love life. Thanks for giving so much, you are very appreciated.
Great point, Jonathan! There’s no reason why every day can’t be a holiday! I was thinking along the same lines for my fourth of July post!
.-= Vin – NaturalBias´s last blog ..Celebrating Your Potential on Independence Day =-.
Hey Vin, good attitude. I try to celebrate life everyday. I went and read your post, loved it. Thanks for joining in the conversation.
Jonathan, this is the most wonderful article about celebrating life. Thank you for giving us the insightful look at life and each day of living… Life that is so precious. Thank you for the reminder that we have to celebrate life every day – Great Blog!
Hi Zuzanna, thanks for joining in. It’s great how a little reminder gets us thinking in a really appreciative direction. That only happens for people who already love life. Have a happy Zuzanna day!
Hi Jonathan,
I agree 100% each day should be a celebration and we also should have a longer weekend!
It is important to appreciate all and whom we love everyday.
Hope you have a great weekend.
Hi Bunny, works for me, more celebrating and longer weekends. Thank you!
Great stuff Jonathan!
“I think that we should all get in the habit of rewarding ourselves for, and celebrating, our personal accomplishments.”
Absolutely! Happy 4th of July
.-= Stephen – Rat Race Trap´s last blog ..More About Living in the Now =-.
Hi Stephen, you are right, making it a habit is really where the benefit is. By regularly reminding ourselves of the positive aspects of our life we create a shift in perception. This increases our awareness of smaller reasons to celebrate which feeds our overall mindset.
Great post and happy Fourth of July! I have many personalities and really feel that day contribute to quality of life. It’s funny how the major holidays help society get from one month to the next. Despite the commerciality, I think they’re just as important.
.-= Mark Lewis´s last blog ..Happy Independence Day =-.
Hi Mark, just think, what if we had a holiday mindset everyday? Instead of getting from month to month we would look forward to celebrating each and every day. Thanks for joining in Mark.
I can’t relate directly to the 4th of July holiday, but I do have my own personal celebration spots, not always related to the public holiday timeline.
Living life like a holiday is such a fun and rewarding choice.
.-= Dragos Roua´s last blog ..System Overload =-.
Hey Dragos, we should all develop those “personal celebration spots.” Things don’t need to be major to be worthy of recognition and celebration. Why should we wait for big events when there are so many smaller one that happen daily. Like you, my personal celebrations are unrelated to the public holiday time-line.
I totally agree, we should find things to celebrate in every single day, not just wait for ‘special’ occasions, life is too short. An excellent article as always.
Hi Kate, thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.
Hi Jonathan. Rewards can be used in a very healthy ways to keep us more content, happier and more inspired to live life fully. My husband and I have long and short term rewards – just like one might have long and short term goals.
We have rewards thoughout the day while we are both working, which might include a break where we talk on the phone with each other, or a nice healthy snack that we are looking forward to, or maybe a walk across the desert at sunset together. Or we each might have our own short term rewards, like a hot bath, or read of a good book, or time in the garden, time to play piano (me) or guitar (him) etc.
Then we have “through the week” rewards, maybe a calm dinner out together or a picnic for an hour in nature. Then we have end of the week rewards, maybe a drive one evening to local ruins to hike around and photograph, or dinner out, or time together doing something we both enjoy, maybe composing music together, or sharing intimate time, etc.
And then we have bigger rewards throughout the year, maybe some time off to take a 3 – 6 day trip and so forth.
A reward might even be a much needed nap, time set aside to sit down and both talk about our dreams, feelings, goals, stresses, etc.
There are so many ways to encourage ourselves with rewards that are necessary, healing and revitalizing. My husband actually taught me to do this. He is much better at setting healthy rewards than I am.
Great post!! But then they always are.
)
Hugs,
Robin
.-= Robin Easton´s last blog ..What’s the Latest Score? =-.
Another thought:
I’ve never been one to really get caught up in traditional holidays. In fact most of them I find draining and have little meaning to my life. I see them often as very consumeristic and VERY pressure oriented, where people are SUPPOSED to be, do and behave in certain ways and when they don’t meet these expectations they often risk being rejected by family and friend. Christmas is classic example of this. I see so many around me extremely stressed and literally on the point of break down, even going into massive financial debt to meet the demand of “gift” exchanging. I have friends who end up on my door in tears over it and yet they keep doing it. But understand this with compassion as the pressure “to do” can seem very real.
A few years ago it hit me that I am not Christian…I follow no religion and yet live a very aware and “spirit-filled” life. Once I made the choice to step away from “programmed” celebrations I really started to relax. I tell my friends and family not to send gifts, but to ONLY do something when and IF they are genuinely moved to do so. My husband who is Mohawk Indian felt the same. From there we went to create our own celebrations everyday and in our own way. And it has been sooooooo freeing. My dad was like that; holidays meant little to him and then all of a sudden he would turn up with a gift for no reason other than he had thought of me (or whomever the gift was for) or he would say lets celebrate this today…and so forth.
For me the best celebrations are those that come from the heart and not from social edict or conditioning.
I will stop here!! LOLOL Thank you my VERY patient friend.
)
Robin
.-= Robin Easton´s last blog ..What’s the Latest Score? =-.
Hi Robin, I see you are having trouble coming up with something to say again, LOL. I know that many people have some strong emotional anchors linked to the holidays, but personally, I tend to agree with your closing statement: “For me the best celebrations are those that come from the heart and not from social edict or conditioning.”
Hi Jonathan, totally agree with you. In times like these it’s difficult to find ways to reward ourselves. After finishing a recent personal project I celebrated by going to Borders bookshop. I spent around 4 hours in there just having a coffee, a cookie and looking round all the books in my areas of interest. I didn’t even buy any books but I thought it was a great 4 hours and a great reward to myself.
Another great post, thanks.
.-= Steven Aitchison´s last blog ..Sunday Siesta – July 5th =-.
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing this. Your 4 hour break shows the value of taking some time to enjoy yourself and stay in balance. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, as long as it feels refreshing to you.
I didn’t have my own 4th of July post as being a Canadian, our day is on July1. However, my birthday is on the 4th of July so I was in fact our celebrating instead of writing on the blog. It was joyous as are so many other days I take the time to realize how many friends and family I have that care about me and that I can share with in my life. That is worthy of celebrating and something I can honestly say, I do much more than the odd holiday.
I sit down at lunch outside at a picnic table many days each week and enjoy the sun, and say, “ah, I love life!”. It’s so abnormal some people actually think it is weird. Well, good. I’ll take weird any day then if that is all it is…
.-= Mike King´s last blog ..Resources – May/June 2009 =-.
Hi Mike, your lunch in the sun is a lot like Steve’s (above) short bookstore pause. These breathers can go along way toward keeping us centered and at peace.
I found your article and loved it. I do food demos and our theme is celebrating with food, and more! Sometimes we can just celebrate making it through a tough day! My friends and I have done this a lot over the last couple of years, since the economy has gone south. As we say to each other, we make tough look good! We do love spending time together!
Thank you for a very insightful article. I hope it’s alright to quote you in future demos!
Susann Edmonds
Jabberwocky Smooth Jerk
Hi Susann, what a great attitude. When we find reasons to celebrate trial-some situations it shifts our internal reference point one of gratitude which is very empowering.