Just like when you start anything new, starting these personal festivals has a learning curve. Planning 12 in December/January and then executing them throughout the year is leaving a misalignment between what we actually want to do when that time comes up.
When planning your personal festivals, it is becoming increasingly important to think about how you spend your days during that time period. In the Winter, we crave a reason to leave the house. In the Spring, we want to take advantage of the nice weather. In the Summer, as it turns out, we already have a lot of plans. The idea of adding another big day of travel and adventure was adding friction where these festivals are meant to be fun.
The June festival was to go backpacking: an adventure we’ve been trying to have for years. Each time, something out of our control comes up and the trip gets postponed. This time, it was a thunderstorm. When we planned our festivals in January, we didn’t have a trip to North Carolina to visit my in-laws on the calendar.
Vacations are already an adventure.
When planning for our personal festivals, we decided that we don’t need one in the months where we are going on a vacation. We were trying to keep our backpacking festival on the calendar (since festivals are not meant to be rescheduled), but we were not going to backpack in the rain. We’re hoping to go backpacking in August.
The July festival was centered around a day at the beach. Again, what we didn’t anticipate was a trip to visit my in-laws in June. They live near the beach, so the idea of a beach day no longer had the pull it did when we were planning in January because we just did it. In June, we were barely home. We came back to have a fantastic family weekend celebrating my grandma’s 90th birthday. All this to say, we craved a local and low-effort festival. It was not what we had planned.
I’d love to tell you that we pivoted to a different festival. I did come up with one that I felt could match our energy, but honestly, it felt forced. The purpose of personal festivals isn’t to fulfill a quota. I designed these so I would feel like I was truly living. I wanted to have more fun in my life. Well, now I am looking back at June and July and there is actually too much fun. It’s impossible, I know.
An added bonus
Writing these posts causes me to pause and reflect on a monthly basis. An unexpected outcome, but a welcome one. I’m not sure I would have realized that I’m achieving my goal! I have added more fun to my life. The purpose of the festival and the intention I set has started trickling into other aspects of my life. It took an outside perspective (my husband) and sitting down here to realize I was approaching this weekend all wrong.
When I dreamt up version two of our July festival, I wasn’t listening to what our bodies were saying. My version two still required us to get up in the morning and leave the house early. We had 3 destinations and I was trying to piece them together and create a theme to force our day to be a festival. Really, I felt like a failure. Yet another festival not going as planned. As a Virgo, I pride myself in being an expert planner. Why couldn’t I get this right?
Silly me, you plan to execute the purpose.
I’m going to say that again, but in a different way in case there are other organized planners who need to hear it. What is your ‘why’? You are planning the day because… the event, the week, your life.
Was I planning a festival just to have a festival to plan? No.
Was I planning a festival so I would have something to write about? No.
Was I planning a festival so I would have something to do? No.
Oh, I was planning a festival as a channel to add more fun and adventure into my life. So then the next set of questions become:
Have I been having fun and adventure in the last few weeks? Yes.
Am I excited to plan this adventure or experience it? No.
What would I rather do instead? Be home.
So now with all of this information, I will share with you the festival that I should’ve planned for this past weekend, as a reminder that festivals can come in all shapes & sizes.
The Restorative Renaissance
A slow start to the day where we’d sit with our books and drink coffee. We’d cook a glorious and complicated breakfast because we had nothing but time. While we were digesting, we’d play a board game together. One that we’d been meaning to try. Then we’d break off into practicing our hobbies. I would’ve sewn and my husband could’ve practiced the guitar. The day would continue with self-care, face masks and painting my nails. We would’ve ordered in and started a movie marathon. We’d go to bed at a decent hour so we were properly set up for the week ahead, feeling utterly restored.
What makes this a festival versus just a day? Honestly, this definition is ever-evolving and in year one I think that is fair. Are you ready for the answer because it’s a really simple one?
Intention.
Sure, some of you could have had that exact day and felt restored and not called it a festival. Go for it. The key word in what I’m building is “personal”. Your definition and your guidelines will differ from mine. There are so many reasons someone may choose to start planning a personal festival. All this time, I thought my reasoning was to add more fun and adventure into my life. As it turns out, I really wanted to add more intentional living.
Challenge: Try to take what you need at the moment and turn it into a festival.
