Hey, this is Mat Boggs.
Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays.
I’m here for you in my favorite ugly, quirky Christmas sweater, right?
What do you think of this guy right here?
And I’m creating this video for you to be a reminder in your life on this day because
Christmas is the time of the year when we give gifts to the people who matter most to
us to express our love and our gratitude for them in our lives.
And for many of us, Christmas is this beautiful time of joy and laughter and love.
And for many of us, it’s also an experience of great pain.
And it might be a dual experience for you where it might be pain of someone who’s
no longer in your life or love that you’ve lost or maybe a representation that you don’t
have the love in your life that you want at the particular time, and that can be a source
of longing and discontent for you.
So I want to remind you of the people that you’re going to give a gift to this day,
I have a recommendation.
Chances are you’ve got a big list of people that you’ve already bought gifts for.
Well, there’s one person that you want to make sure is on that list, and not just on
the list, but there’s one person that you want to make sure is at the top of that list.
And that person is you.
And you’re not putting yourself at number one on this list for selfish reasons; you’re
putting yourself at the top of this list for generative reasons and here’s what I mean.
Of all the gifts you could give yourself this year, the one gift I encourage you to give
your self is self-compassion, is greater love for yourself.
Now, the first part of compassion that you want to give yourself is loving kindness for
all of the imperfections in your life.
You know, often we’re the hardest on ourselves – way more than anyone else.
So maybe your body isn’t the way you want it to be or maybe you’re not in the relationship
you want or the career you want, but to have compassion for yourself and to be kind to
yourself in the midst of those imperfections.
You know, the people who are the most joyous, the most fulfilled in life are the ones who
have learned to practice compassion and kindness for their imperfections.
I’ll tell you a quick story on this.
Two days ago, I come home from the gym, it’s early morning, I’m making my coffee, I go
up to shower.
My wife comes in five minutes later and says, “Hey, babe, I could tell that you were really
focused on work today,” and I said, “What do you mean?”
And she goes, “Well, when you were making coffee, you put the coffee in, you put the
water in the back of the coffee machine and you hit Go, but you forgot to put the coffee
pot under the coffee maker.”
And I said, “What?
Where is the coffee pot?” and she goes, “The coffee pot’s just out on the counter.
So instead of making a great pot of coffee, you have made a beautiful countertop full
of coffee.”
I said, “What?”
I came down, the whole pot of coffee’s going all over the counter, under the microwave.
Now, my wife, bless her heart, could’ve just laid into me and, “You need to be more
focused and you need to really be more present,” and, you know, really just laid into me, but
instead she was compassionate and she said, “Look, we all make mistakes.
Let’s clean this up together.
No big deal.”
But the most important person to be kind to me was myself.
And so we were able to clean that up and just keep it as a five-minute mistake, but if I
had been critical of myself, I could’ve easily turned that into a few hours of feeling
bad and criticizing myself and berating myself in my own head, right?
So practice loving kindness for yourself this day.
And the second part of the gift of compassion is to honor the journey that you’ve been
on.
Again, maybe you haven’t accomplished all the goals that you set out for yourself this
year but you’re here.
Not everybody who started this year alive is still alive today.
You’re here, you made it this far, you’ve put in work, you’ve overcome challenges,
you’ve grown yourself.
So the part of compassion is to honor the journey, to honor ourselves.
It’s real easy to look at other people and what their status is and what their results
are and compare ourselves to those people, but it’s important to honor yourself for
all the things that you have done and really celebrate your wins.
I was on a phone call a couple months ago with one of my mentors.
This guy make millions of dollars, has written over 30 books, and we were talking about my
goals and I was thinking, “Well, I want to create this and I didn’t create this
and I wanted to do this and I didn’t do that.”
And he could tell I was kind of beating myself up a little bit and I said, “So, you know,
what do you think about these goals?”
fully expecting him to give me the “You can do it” speech and “Push harder and
try harder.”
And what he said caught me off-guard.
He said, “You know, Mat.
Let me ask you a question.
Of all those goals that you have down that you accomplished some, you didn’t accomplish
others, didn’t you have a baby this year?”
I said, “Oh yeah, I did have a baby this year.
Let me add that to the list.”
“Yeah, didn’t you have a baby and didn’t you raise that baby and all the things?
You’ve done amazingly well.”
Like and as soon as he said that, my whole nervous system calmed down.
And so it’s really to honor that, “Yes, I have done well and I’ve helped raise a
beautiful little girl and have an amazing marriage.”
So the same message goes for you.
Honor yourself, honor the journey that you’ve been on, all the work that you’ve put in
this year, how far you’ve come.
You’ve scratched, you’ve clawed, you’ve created an amazing life for yourself.
Yeah, it might not be everything that you want but that’s not the important piece
in this gift.
The important piece for this gift is to honor everything that you have accomplished and
all that you have done for yourself, for your life, and for others.
So the gift of compassion.
Give that gift to yourself this day: the gift of loving kindness for your imperfections
and honoring the journey that’s brought you to right now, right where you are, embarking
upon an amazing year ahead for yourself.
So Merry Christmas, happy holidays.
Thanks so much for watching.
I’m wishing you all the best.
If you like this video, if you found it inspiring, I invite you to share it with someone that
you care about.
If one of your goals is to attract the love of your life, that this is your year for love,
I’ve posted a resource and a link in the top of this video and also in the description
that will help empower you to do that.
If you’re not subscribed, make sure you get subscribed to this channel so you can
get the latest and greatest videos.
Thanks so much for watching.
I’ll see you soon.