How Will You Spend Your Bonus 24 Hours?

You may not have realized it yet, but 2024 is a leap year. In leap years, we get a bonus 24 hours – a leap day.

In 2016, amid some personal and professional transitions, I chose “leap” as my word of the year – before realizing 2016 was a leap year. I decided that if “leap” was my word for 2016, then I needed to do something special, intentional and powerful with those bonus 24 hours. So, I took a four-day trip over Leap Day to a tiny rustic yoga center on the outskirts of a small fishing village in Jamaica. It was exactly what I needed that year and laid the groundwork for some major leaps.

You can imagine that when leap year rolled around again in 2020, I wanted to do something equally intentional.

I realized that a few of my favorite bands were playing within an hour’s drive (in two different cities) over Leap Day weekend. Hmmm… chill at an oceanside yoga retreat or stay in the area, hit a few concerts, and dance my heart out? Choices, choices!

?Since my word for 2020 was “play,” I chose the latter. And boy was that the right decision! Just a few weeks later, COVID restrictions went into place and experiencing live, in-person music was not possible for over a year.

?Another leap year is upon us. How will I spend my bonus 24 hours this year?

?My word this year is “opportunity.” In ancient wisdom, “opportunity” is associated with moonlight filtered through pine trees. I haven’t decided yet where or how I’ll spend February 29th. Maybe a cabin in the forest, making space for all the opportunities I’ll seize and create this year.

?For those of us who would take more time over almost anything else, Leap Day is the perfect gift. And yet, it’s so easy to let time slip away if we don’t approach each day with a purpose (even if that purpose is to chill on the couch binging on Netflix).

?The point of this article is not to encourage readers to set even more ambitious goals or add 300 more tasks to the never-ending to-do list so that you can spend your bonus 24 hours in striving-achievement mode. At the same time, I’m not discouraging striving-achievement mode if that’s your intention.

I am encouraging you, whatever you choose, to be more intentional about this once-every-four-year bonus day. Please don’t let this bonus 24 hours go the way of every other average day where we're on autopilot, going through the motions, reacting to whatever is put in front of us, rather than setting the stage and taking control of our lives.

?So, play, work, strive, take a spa day, walk in the woods, or eat bonbons. Explore, grow, learn, chill. Whatever you choose. Make sure you choose it.

?So, what will you do with your bonus 24 hours in 2024?

?Please share in the comments. I'd love to hear about it!