I can’t believe it, but my husband and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! I feel like it just snuck up on us, but when I look back at all that we have accomplished, celebrated, lost, gained, birthed, bought, sold, etc.—it is quite astounding. Of course our greatest accomplishments are our four children, and just keeping up with the four kids is a lot. But besides the four kids, we have our own goals, dreams, and visions for ourselves, as individuals, as a couple and as a family. That’s a lot of stuff worth talking about, right?
Brad and I both love to listen to podcasts, and right around our anniversary we were each listening to different interviews with the same gentleman, Brad Feld. Feld (I’m referring to him as Feld so as not to get him confused with my Brad) has a lot to offer, but my greatest takeaway is his idea of a “Monthly Life Dinner”. The idea is to commit to scheduling a dinner out once a month where a portion of the meal is spent discussing the prior month in the context of your life goals. And I liked how Feld said they schedule this as a repeating event on their Google calendars each month so it truly is a commitment. The idea is to stick with it and not let the busy-ness of life push it aside.
When my Brad and I were discussing Feld’s interviews and the Monthly Life Dinner came up, I said “Okay, we’re doing this starting now.” I am a realist, though, and I do know that a regular dinner commitment might be challenging with four kids (Feld and his wife have none), so we decided it could be dinner or a lunch. Yeah, I’m flexible like that! So we started the ritual last week and had our first Monthly Life Lunch. It also doubled as our anniversary celebration, which seemed like the perfect time to start.
Ideas for great Monthly Life Dates (feel free to steal, borrow, adapt, or create your own):
- Pick a pre-arranged time (e.g., first Friday of the month at 12 noon), schedule in your calendar & make it a recurring appointment
- Topics must be life focused. It can be five minutes around this or several hours, depending on the state of your life
- Give a gift (for me it’s the gift of time but maybe it will evolve…the idea of physical gifts is growing on me as I write this) – little, big, simple, thoughtful, surprising—you get the idea
- Pick an old favorite or go explore a new place for the event
- Have fun even if the topics to discuss get a little heavy, as they sometimes will
- Remember why you’re doing it in the first place
I’ll let you know how it goes with us, but I encourage you to do this for you and your partner. And if you don’t have a significant other, do it with your best friend or a confidant at work. Have fun, aim high and see where it takes you.
Do you think it is a good idea or is it just me?
