2024 October 22 The October Theory

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about The October Theory. If you like what you hear today please leave a Like, subscribe, tell your friends, and send me a message! 

Thanks for joining me tonight to talk about not putting things off.

Wait! I thought this was about The October Theory?!?

Well, in today’s modern sound byte world, nothing can be anything unless there is either a nifty acronym or a buzzword phrase, or preferably, both. In this case, the simple mindset of not wasting the last quarter of the year on football games and complaining about winter morphed into The October Theory.

Poof, just like that, a new catchy phrase enters the parlance. But what is The October Theory? Essentially, it’s planning to not go into hibernation for the Holiday Season and then trying to recreate yourself on New Year’s Day.

I've seen many supposed powers of starting to update your life starting in October versus New Year’s—but I feel that is missing the point, and I will explain why.

We have always embraced and taught the concepts of continuous introspection and self-improvement, proper goal-setting, consistency, self-acknowledgement, and many other aspects that are supposed benefits of starting in October. 

However, living a mindful and meaningful life is making a little progress every day, not one day or one week a year. The October Theory might better be described as a little version of The Today Theory. Let’s look at some of the alleged benefits of recreating your life starting in October.

The first one is time to reflect. One of the stated benefits is that starting to review your year in October gives you a better perspective to review your past 9 months rather than just looking ahead. We should always be reviewing the past, but I would suggest it shouldn’t be a 9 month period. If you journal or use one of our daily affirmation sheets, you will see that we review the previous day and then the previous week and month.

The purpose of this isn’t to find fault in yourself, but rather to see what worked and what didn’t. For most things, waiting 9 months to review them is far too long. We should be reviewing our past actions at a high level pretty much every day. Not a detailed analysis, but just thinking about what went well or made us feel better, and what didn’t. Simple.

Some people say that realizing it is the end of the year makes it feel like a time of urgency, especially for annual goals that aren’t done. This is an interesting one to me, because it implies that the goals haven’t been really reviewed for a long time. Part of the beauty of regular simple goal review is fewer last minute surprises and more motivation!

Some people prefer October because it is when the seasons start to change. I can understand that, but I’d take it a step further and have quarterly reviews then, which is exactly what we encourage.

Your brain likes it when you keep telling it what a wonderful job it is doing, and when your brain is happy then you are happy. Regular updates to your plans are a good thing and they help a lot in both keeping you and your brain motivated, but also keeping those bigger goals in the back of your mind so your brain can come up with clever solutions.

Finally, some people talk about October as being able to use the energy of the holiday season. 

I guess, but I would suggest that well-written goals need less external motivation and energy because they are, ideally, aligned with your life vision. 

Of course, no one wants to clean the basement, but, if your goal is to refinish the basement, the cleaning goals go from being an unpleasant goal into a self-rewarding step to your real goal. Your brain really does know the difference. Its whole purpose is to keep you safe and keep you happy. You will tend to be happier if you are working towards a goal that is important to you.

One of my mentors recently answered another member’s question in a humorous way. The question was, “What affirmations do you say to get yourself energized in the morning?” His answer was, “Really, just waking up to another day is pretty energizing all by itself!”

It was a deeper answer than it might first appear. It is being thankful for all the regular things we tend to take for granted. It is being energized by the opportunity to do more things aligned with your life vision. It is appreciating all the things we have in life that we can share with others and perhaps make the world a little bit nicer. What could be more motivating than that?!?

None of this is to minimize the effect or importance of The October Theory. Anything that gets people thinking about goal setting and helps them to stay motivated is a great thing!

But don’t overlook the real power of regular planning, even to the extent of little plans at the start and/or end of every day—our own The Today Theory. Regular check-ins with your own plans help keep you on course and help keep you motivated. It is one of the reasons we always emphasize celebrating every little win. It is very easy to get discouraged when all we see is an ever-growing todo list. 

However, if you have a little celebration for every win, even just imagining how you are one bit closer to your life vision, then you see that daily list as an escalator to your ideal life instead of a muddy road that you have to slog through. A simple todo list of no more than 3 items can totally change the course of your day for the better. I often do one on my phone when I am going to bed. It can be a little longer, but you really want to keep the important must-do things list pretty short so that you will get them done. Then when you end your day, you can look at the things crossed off of your list and feel good about the progress you made.

It doesn’t have to be involved or anything other than simple for you to use and be motivating for you. Pick your own style—maybe you are a doodler, but keep it simple and focused on reminding you of the progress that you are making.

That's it for the evening. Stay focused on living your life aligned with your vision. One of the simplest ways to do that is with daily todo lists and by regularly reviewing where you are on your own personal journey towards your life vision.

Fads may come and go, but the basics remain the same. Define your vision, make goals to support your journey towards that vision, and keep track of your progress so you can celebrate the wins big and small.

Whether it’s The October Theory, the 7EM The Today Theory, or any of the many other excellent motivational techniques, the important part is to live your life with a purpose and to move forward in a direction that brings you closer to your vision.

Your homework (always optional) is to honestly think if you have been doing a daily plan of any sort. If you have, has it been effective? Extra points if you start or restart a daily plan if you aren’t currently doing one. If you are, is there anything you can do to make it even more motivational for yourself?

That’s it for the evening. Please remember the many wars currently active in the world.

In the Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa and everywhere there are disasters or suffering. The page of Ukraine donation links is still up at UKR7.com. 

Also remember the damage and injury in the wake of the recent hurricanes in the Southeast US, the Caribbean and Mexico. Remember and pray for the aid workers from WCK who died. The link to World Central Kitchen is WCK.org. They are totally humanitarian, providing meals for people in need.

Remember that one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others, so if you can and are able, please check out UKR7.com. Be true to yourself and live your life aligned with your true goals and feelings. 

As always, thank you for stopping by! If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along and please subscribe and hit that Like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you would like to hear.  Have a great week!

Remember to live the life you dreamed of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone and see you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.