Monday, November 3, 2014

30 Day Challenge - A Memory a Day

We all lead busy lives these days. The majority of it is spent at the office, trying to earn enough money to afford nicer things in life. As we grow older, many of us have kids and their lives and activities create to dos put on our list. Many of us have a significant other in our life with whom we certainly want to make time to spend. After that, it can be hard to stay in touch with all the friends we had before we got jobs and before we had children. And what about time to ourselves?

We all make sacrifices to one thing or another in order to make time for something else. For some of us it is sleep that we sacrifice. For others, we lose touch with old friends. Some of us shift time spent with our children or spouse to gain more time and success at work, or vice versa. In most cases sacrifices are made in more than one area of our lives to make up for lost time in other areas. As the old saying goes, “there’s not enough time in a day”.

To make matters worse, we can get caught up in our daily lives that we forget that we are missing time spent on things that are important to us.

I am thinker, an introvert as the label goes. I enjoy time spent reflecting on life. I like to think about my past and learning from things I have done so I can apply the best methods of things done to my future. I recently had a new idea that I wanted to test out. With all the routine and busyness in our lives, I felt like I could be missing opportunities to collect memories. Isn’t that what we live for, to make long-lasting, wonderful memories? I wanted to see what would happen if I kept a journal and recorded at least one memory for 30 straight days.

My experience began on my birthday, the first of the month. What I found was that we tend to miss the fact that we do in fact create memories almost every day, despite our occasional feeling that we are “stuck” in our daily routines. Or maybe it is the monotony that we dislike. The feeling that unless a grand event takes place, we aren’t capitalizing on our time. We therefore don’t tend to realize that we are creating memories from things that may not necessarily stand out right away.  Like mommy singing a lullaby to the kids on their sleepover (my kids occasionally sleep in the same room together instead of in their own rooms, hence the word “sleepover”).

Only by concentrating on the little things at the end of each day did I realize that I am making memories, whether I realize it or not. It was fun to write down a memory each day because it gave me my time to reflect. It helped me to appreciate every day. Each day is certainly a gift and it deserves to be appreciated. Writing my memories down also provided an opportunity to remember more by being able to go back and reading about things that can sometimes be forgotten.

My advice to others is not to fret over our daily lives and wishing we could do more. We are making memories. It is up to us however, to make those memories worthwhile. It can be helpful to stop and reflect on things that are most important to us so that we can make sure these things fit into our busy schedules. It can be fun to think about the memories you made over the previous day or week. Don’t worry that our lives are too routine, just fill that routine with little things that will put on smile on your face the next time you remember them.

Enjoy Life.

Coach Randal Suozzo, CPC, ELI-MP


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