Celebrate Life
Here’s a little secret: Every leader you know, including you, has a birthday. (Today is mine.) Some of us, maybe many of us, find it difficult to celebrate making it around the sun again.
Maybe we feel we just don’t have time, or we’ve gotten out of practice. Maybe we just aren’t into having the big blowout parties we used to have in the past (and maybe never liked to begin with). Maybe we don’t like to remember another year has gone by.
But being able to celebrate the fact that we’re alive is vital, not only for ourselves but also for the organizations we lead.
One team I worked on had a practice of celebrating each other’s birthdays. My boss even budgeted for it. When our turn came, the office bought a small cake, and we sang “Happy Birthday” and ate it together. The whole thing took about 15 minutes.
Did I mention we were the only team in the whole place who laughed every day?
So celebrating our lives is important. Remember that there’s no set of rules telling you how to do it. If you like it small and quiet or a little louder this year, that’s beautiful, too.
For many, changing our birthday habit is as easy as taking a moment to give ourselves permission to celebrate, reconnect with our joy, and make a plan.
But if you’re still finding that celebrating your birthday is difficult, think about two questions:
First, where might I be hurting? If we’re struggling to celebrate, it may be because:
We don’t feel we deserve it.
We’re full of regret about where we are in life.
We’ve lost someone or something that makes it hard to celebrate.
We find focusing attention on ourselves uncomfortable.
Noting where we’re hurting can help us hold our birthdays (and ourselves) differently and can help open a conversation about what this birthday can mean.
Second: What do I need? As event planner Priya Parker notes in the New York Times, naming our needs helps us plan how we can celebrate and with whom.
But talking about what we need can be hard for many people.
We might have grown up feeling ashamed about being “needy.”
We might have grown up having our needs invalidated.
We might be used to never getting our needs met.
And because of all that, we may find it difficult even to notice what we need at all, let alone say it.
Getting in touch with our needs, like knowing where we’re hurting, can open up deeper questions about our lives. Depending on how difficult those questions are, we might need to talk with someone like a therapist or coach.
Imagine what it would be like to celebrate the joy of being alive—in spite of it all. How would reconnecting with your joy change how you show up for yourself? How would it change your leadership?
My coaching can help you answer those questions. Book your free Discovery Session here.
