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Nancy Byerly Jones Re-post: Celebrating Great Holiday Moments ? Ignoring the Not-So-Good!

By Dan Pinnington

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Cross-posted on the Lawyer Success Tips blog

Although we have never met, over the years I have avidly read and learned a lot from Nancy Byerly Jones. She has written some great articles and created some awesome resources on risk management and claims prevention. My good friend and fellow PMA (practice management advisor) Jim Calloway pointed out a great post Nancy made on her blog yesterday.

Nancy gives us all solid practical advice for making the most with family and friends on this US Thanksgiving (we actually did Thanksgiving in Canada about a month ago), and indeed on any other holiday. In her post Nancy said:

Some of the best advice I ever received was to cherish the good moments during the holidays. In other words, instead of our lamenting over the presence of a loud, obnoxious relative or your grumpy ol? Uncle?s sour outlook on life, celebrate the one or two moments they actually laughed, shared a rare hug or cracked a funny one liner. If we judge our holidays in their totality, we may very well be disappointed because we so badly wanted the entire holiday to be picture perfect. Yet, we all know perfect just ?ain?t? going to happen in the midst of all our personality differences, quirks and wide ranging dispositions.

And so we must cherish all the good moments of our holidays and give them the highest priority in our memory banks. Better yet, after duly noting any lessons to be learned from our unpleasant life experiences, we benefit tremendously (mentally and physically) from assigning our bad memories a permanent ?time out? status. In fact, deep breathing myself back into the present moment and living each one fully are among my most valuable stress management ?tools.? I count on these ?tools? when I get stuck dwelling on painful past memories or unproductively worrying about the future. Don?t get me wrong ?. planning ahead wisely is a worthwhile endeavor?.unproductive worrying, however, is costly. It costs us the moments at hand, stress and usually resolves nothing ? unproductive.

This familiar quote rings so true with me ?..?We don?t remember days?we remember moments.? So with another holiday season upon us, I will be looking for and cherishing all the good moments that occur with family and friends and I will refuse to let the not-so-good ones dampen my spirits. How about you?

Happy Thanksgiving, Safe Travels, Enjoyable Feasting &
Wishing Each of You Many Happy Moments with Family & Friends!

Words to live by on our holidays and in our personal and professional lives. Thanks for some great advice Nancy!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our US SLAW readers.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 26, 2009 (boomark / email).