October 19 - Evaluate Your Life Day

I realize as I type this that I am a day late, but this is the first time I've heard of "Evaluate Your Life Day." At our home we usually joke about Hallmark creating  more holidays so they can sell more cards & gifts, but sometimes it's nice to focus on something special for a specific day. This holiday looked interesting, to say the least.

THE HISTORY OF EVALUATE YOUR LIFE DAY

Evaluate Your Life Day was created by Thomas and Ruth Roy, founders of Wellcat Holidays. The website specializes in creating quirky and fun holidays for celebrating life. So far, they’ve created about 80 existing holidays, including “For the Love of Mike Day” and “A Room of One’s Own Day”.

Evaluate Your Life Day is all about self-evaluation and self-assessment, which involves assessing yourself in terms of what goals you’ve achieved. This assessment is carried out with the aim of becoming better and not for the purpose of self-judgment or criticism.

In 1988, the Self-Evaluation Maintenance (SEM) model was formulated by Abraham Tesser, a distinguished professor of research at the University of Georgia. The theory assumes that two people who are in a relationship boost their psychological contentment by carrying out comparisons to each other. The theory assumes two standpoints: one, that a person will attempt to boost or enhance their own self-evaluation and two, that this self-evaluation is influenced by one’s relationship with others.

The theory also advances that a person’s self-evaluation may increase when a person close to him/her also has a positive experience. This balance goes both ways and is referred to as reflection or comparison. In reflection, the closer the relationship, the greater the success. However, in comparison, the success of a close other may decrease the person’s self-evaluation as a result of negative comparison.

So on Evaluate Your Life Day, it’s important, even when faced with unpleasant aspects of life, to maintain a positive outlook. Evaluate your life through a lens of kindness, and not judgment.

MY THOUGHTS

You may have heard of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. There are some truths to what he proposes. If we consciously think about what we are thankful for and the blessings we have - in my circle we call them "praises" -it seems to change our attitude about the other things that are happening around us. As our pastor would say, "Your joy should be based on Jesus Christ, not on the circumstances around you." So even if you're having a bad day, or things are not how you wish, is there something you can be thankful for? Thanksgiving is over a month away, but we can be thankful all year long.

DIGGING DEEPER

If the purpose of this holiday is to assess ourselves based on the goals we've set, then it may be time to celebrate those accomplishments. Without getting discouraged about what you have not accomplished, think about what you have accomplished. Are you further along than you were at this point last year? Of course, we need benchmarks to see progress. So take the time today to record where you are in all areas of your life. Some examples may include: physical fitness, nutrition and diet, spiritual devotion, faithfulness, academic level, mental state, financial status, occupation or business, etc.

May you be encouraged today to evaluate where you are, and when you look back to this day next year, may you be pleased with your progress.