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- Effective at Celebrating
I'm still exploring the wonders of Japan, 12 days into discovering new places, foods, and cultural norms with my family. After all of your engagement with my recent post on Ikigai, I debated about what to write next. There are numerous aspects of Japanese culture that offer lessons in effectiveness, but I've chosen to explore one that particularly surprised me during my work with a team in Japan about a year ago: Japanese Holidays.
Effective at Celebrating
Several Japanese concepts promote effectiveness. In addition to Ikigai, there are multiple other concepts that mostly embrace imperfection as a path to resilience and self-discovery. Among these, my favorites include "Kintsugi," illustrating the beauty of imperfection through repairing broken pottery with gold, "Kaizen," encouraging continuous improvement (adopted by many operations teams but easily applicable to self-development), and "Wabi-sabi," which finds beauty in life's natural cycles of growth and decay ("wabi" = less is more, and "sabi" = attentive melancholy).
However, today I want to highlight Japanese Holidays. This is something I believe to be playing a strong part in shaping the exceptional values and culture I've experienced during my stay here the past 12 days.
Japanese Holidays reflect a respect for ancestors and family traditions. Keiro-no-Hi (Respect for the Aged Day), a long weekend in September when people go back home to pay respect to the elderly. Obon, an annual celebration of ancestors and their spirits; and the Spring and Autumn equinoxes (Shunbun no Hi) where families visit temples and participate in rituals passed to them by ancestors.
On the opposite end, there are celebrations honoring the youth. Coming of Age Day (Seijin no Hi) celebrates young people coming into adulthood, and Children's Day (Kodomo no Hi) honors happiness and well-being of children and emphasizing the role of younger generations in shaping the future.
Other Holidays honor culture, nature, and health. Culture Day (Bunka no Hi), Marine Day (Umi no Hi), Greenery Day (Midori no Hi), and Sports Day (Taiiku no Hi) celebrate Japan's cultural heritage, environmental preservation, and the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
Our celebrations shape us. Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, attributes her success to celebrating failure. As she puts it: "Celebrating not trying instead of celebrating the outcome." Similarly, companies also celebrate innovation by dedicating specific time out of their normal working hours towards thinking "out of the box". For instance, Google has a 20% Project Time, LinkedIn has 10% InDay projects, and Intel has Innovation Time Offs - ITOs.
What do you celebrate? Japanese Holidays promotes respect for elders, family values, youth, environmental consciousness, and a healthy lifestyle. Over time, we can all come to find importance in what we celebrate. I propose you try the following:
Decide what your main 3-5 Personal/Family Values are. Here is a list of 20 for inspiration.
Determine ways to celebrate them. For instance, if one of your values is "gratitude," try keeping a journal, or creating a day of the week were you go around the table "thanksgiving-style" during dinner (i.e. Thankful Thursdays).
Volunteer to set your team's Quarterly Celebrations. Usually, teams set annual goals, making it difficult to celebrate during the year. Think beyond your output, and consider celebrating the cultural traits you want your team to have (e.g. failing/innovation, understanding your customers, etc). Propose to celebrate those with real examples.
When was the last time you celebrated something? Candidly, this is one of my biggest regrets as I look back. We are all too busy too often that we sometimes forget to celebrate along the way. Even a good presentation at work should be worth celebrating.
My family set "love for nature" as something we want as a family value, and we are celebrating it every weekend by going on a different nature walk. We choose one small rock, label it, and place it on our patio. We haven’t missed a week this year, and here in Japan we have done it almost daily... now the kids are proactively asking about the next one.
Reporting live from the tallest building in Tokyo,
Jorge Luis Pando
"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." - Oprah Winfrey
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