Does having an “ideal” prevent you from being happy?

With Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday behind us, we’ve officially entered the season of hectic holidays, countdown madness, or just pure consumer madness.

This season always makes me reflect on my own profession: Marketing. After all, I hear that many people inadvertently blame me or my industry peers for the commercialization of this time of year.

Are marketers really to blame?

No I dont think so. And here’s why.

Good marketers generally give consumers what they want, which means they’re not just trying to sell what they have. Marketing is about creating and providing products and services that satisfy some deep-seated need or want that consumers have. Many of these needs and wants are emotional.

And the holidays are a time of strong emotion. Strong expectations for things to be perfect, June Cleaver style; like having a happy and close family, being in a perfect loving relationship, and having a rewarding job with a perfect company and a wonderful boss…like a fantasy or an ideal.

Ideals live within us all the time, but the holidays bring them into sharper focus.

Marketers take advantage of this knowledge when they try to show you how their products and services will meet your needs and wants that create your ideals. They put it there to connect and engage with you.

But they do not create these ideals, they simply respond to them and take advantage of them because they have learned to listen well to their consumers.

However, I find that these ideals of perfection, which increase so dramatically during this time of year, keep us from truly finding joy. These ideals can drive unproductive behavior and unhappiness.

After all, it’s not the marketing; take responsibility for your share of this collective need for the perfect vacation.

I have lived it and I have also contributed to it.

I remember feeling the pressure to take every client on vacation, or to send a meaningful gift to those I work with, or to make meaningful contact with long conversations with dear friends across the country, to send hundreds of cards before mid year. December, to wrap all the gifts beautifully, or to host a holiday gathering in addition to sending gifts to family out of state. The list was too long and too painful to get through with grace and joy.

Over the years, I have learned to let go of many of these ideals that create an unrealistic list of what to do or what to have.

I have come to realize that many of these duties and resulting duties are not based on truth. For example: An expensive gift from a spouse doesn’t really mean you have a closer relationship. A tree full of presents for a child does not mean that he will be happier than he already is (they don’t play with half the presents anyway). An extra holiday dinner or brunch with a client or team won’t make up for the year-round lack of appreciation. Throwing a party or sending cards doesn’t really bring long-lost friends or acquaintances together.

I now accept that Christmas cards can become New Year’s cards, or none at all if the weather doesn’t allow it. I now understand that touching base during other times of the year may be more important to friends and family in far away places. I now know that having a few late gifts that show thought and meaning is more important than having many well-timed “somethings.” I now realize that even if my house may be less decorated than others, that does not mean that my spirit is less bright.

Putting these things in a cost/benefit perspective will allow you to see and focus on the things that matter most to you based on the truth and not the falsehood created by our ideals of perfection.

My hope is that you find more joy in letting go of some of these ideals that you may have in certain areas of your life that come to a head during this time of year. Let the journey from arriving to vacation be as joyful as the destination.

And please don’t blame the marketers; instead, trade your part of this collective need for the ideal. I promise that over time, as more consumers find more joy and are less motivated by these false ideals, marketers will take notice and the messages will change.

May your road to vacation (or any other destination you have) be joyful!