154: Create More Joy in Your Everyday

Welcome to productivity paradox with Tanya Dalton, a podcast focused on finding 

iness through productivity. Season 12 is different from any she’s done before with real conversations with real women, applying strategies and concepts 

explored in The Joy of Missing Out. 

This season, you’ll learn how to live more by doing less. And now here’s your host, 

Tanya Dalton. 

Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to Productivity Paradox. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton, and this is episode 154, Create More Joy in Your Every Day. 

Now, today is a shorter episode than what I normally do, and I did that intentionally. Big surprise there. You know how much I love to be intentional. But you see, if you’re listening to this episode the day it goes live, you know that today is Christmas Eve. And for me, this is a really big day of the year. If you read my book, you probably remember that I talk about how traditions are one of my very favorite productivity tricks to help make these days even more special, to not just run smoothly but to become memorable. I talk about this in the pages of the book. I talk about how I love how traditions weave together years and years’ worth of family time. And I believe the big memories and the feelings that we have from our childhood are really a series of these traditions stitched together over time, weaving together to create a solid memory. 

So, today is special. And I want you, if you’re listening to this the day that this episode goes live or even if you’re listening to it a week after it goes live … Or you know what? Even if it’s months or years after this episode has gone live, I want you to take some time today to create a solid memory, to make today memorable. 

All month long, we’ve been doing this Let Go of the Holiday Hustle live event, and we’ve been talking about this idea. Let’s stop asking ourselves what do we have to do and instead choose to ask what makes it memorable. I know while we’ve been talking about this holiday hustle, we’ve been talking about it in terms of the holidays. But, every day is a day to be celebrated, to be savored and enjoyed. So I want you to ask yourself today, what would make it memorable? What would make right now, this day that we have, what would make it so memorable that I would want to revisit it again and again if I was given a time machine 10 years from now? 

You see, too often we allow our days to pass in a steady blur, task after task, event after event, one budding up after the next. Each one is scrambling to grab their share of our time and attention. And because the day is so full because we’re running from one thing to the next, we forget. We forget to stop and saver. I think we forget the importance of the inhale so that we can exhale. We’re so focused on our output that we don’t think we have time to stop. We don’t have time to simply enjoy our time. We need the inhale, my friends. We need the inhale so we can exhale. We need 

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to stop and take some time for ourselves so that we can do our very best work, so that we can make the difference we want in this world, and so that we can be the force of good in the lives of those around us. 

But here’s the question, if you’re so focused on exhaling, how do you have the breath to really do the important work? And here’s the truth. The work that we’re doing feels so important while we’re doing it but ask us a week later what we were working on and most times we can’t even remember at all. Which begs the question, are we really focusing on what matters most? And that is really the heart of The Joy of Missing Out. It’s not about managing our time, it is savoring the moments. And that’s true of every single day, and it’s especially true of a day like today where we’re in this mad dash to make this holiday perfect, right? The perfect family moment. We’re so focused on perfection that we don’t even stop to savor. 

Theard a friend of mine say this the other day. She said, “Perfectionism is selfish.” And I was taken aback when I heard that. I think it knocked me down flat because of its absolute truth. When we are busy pursuing perfection, we’re not really giving our best version of ourselves to everyone. We’re giving them the Pinterest worthy version, not the real version, not the honest version, not the real authentic you, which is really who your friends and family love. They love you, perfectly imperfect 

you. 

So, I want to challenge you today. I want to challenge you to spend some time today for you. I want you to find some joy of missing out. Find and grab hold of the happiness that’s already there that just maybe has gotten buried in the clutter of everyday life. And I don’t care if you’re listening to this on Christmas Eve. Or maybe you don’t celebrate Christmas at all. Maybe it’s a random Tuesday in March. It doesn’t matter. What matters is this, I want you to take care of you. I want you to find some joy of missing out, and I want you to do it today, right now. Okay, not this very second because I want you to this episode. 

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to write down something you’re going to do today, not tomorrow, not next week, today. What are you going to do today to carve out a little bit of happiness for you? I can promise you, you are absolutely worth it. And we’ll pick back up next week with our normal episodes, but today is yours to make memorable. Today and every day is yours to make special. Go find a little joy of missing out. Doesn’t have to take a whole afternoon or even a whole hour. It can just be minutes. But, joy is all around us. There is magic in our everyday lives. We just have to open ourselves up to finding it. 

And if you think that this pep talk in today’s episode did you a little good, I sure hope it did. Please do this. Send this onto a friend. Because the truth is, we are all, every single one of us, doing our very best to keep our heads above water. Reach out a hand today. Lift her up and remind her that today is hers to enjoy as well. I would love for you to do that. 

So please, take me on with this challenge. Take today. Make it special. Make it memorable. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be huge. Just do something 

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that makes today great. And then you know what? Do it again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and keep the chain going. Find a little joy of missing out. Find a little happiness in each and every day. So until next time, have a beautiful and productive week. 

Thanks for listening to Productivity Paradox. Want to learn more about your unique productivity style? Simply go to Tanyadalton.com to take her free quiz and get free 

resources designed just for you. That’s Tanya, with an O and a Y. 

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