Even gift cards are a bust.  27% of the gift cards gifted last year have never been used.

The problem is, most gifts don’t keep giving.

I know, it sounds a little cliche, but there really is the opportunity to get, and give, gifts that do keep on giving long after the holiday season.

As you are finalizing your wish list this year, go through it and check to make sure that at least something on there actually helps you grow in some way.

What retreat would you like to attend?  Is there a skill you’d like to learn?  What training has always been interesting to you?

These are gifts that keep giving because once you’ve received the initial piece of the gift, the benefits keep going for the rest of your life.  Think about it.  If you attend a yoga retreat, you get to apply your learnings to your yoga practice for the rest of your life.

If you take an immersion course in a language, the benefits of that go far beyond the duration of the course.

If you become certified in something you really love, then once the training is done you can get paid to share that knowledge with someone else.  (Zone three all day long, for those of you who have already read How to Be Rich and Happy and remember the matrix.)

The idea for this post came to me because of a very nice email I recently received from a single mom with two kids who lives in Canada.

She wanted my help in enabling her to take a Big Five for Life certification training I’ve got coming up in January.

Her biggest obstacle, as she noted in her email, was a lack of money.  And I couldn’t help thinking that I bet if she asked people to help her go to the training instead of giving her other Christmas gifts, she’d probably get pretty close.

Here’s something else to keep in mind.  Many times people have gifts to give that they don’t even know they have.  Maybe someone can’t chip in a couple of hundred dollars for you to attend a yoga retreat, but they might be able to give you airline miles so you could fly there for free.

Or maybe they have hotel points to cover your lodging, or can hook you up with a friend of theirs who lives close to where the event is, and who would let you stay for free.

Perhaps they work for a car rental company or hotel chain, or have a friend who does and they can get you a major discount.

In the case of the woman who emailed me, maybe her friends could offer to watch her kids for a few days while she attended the training.

The point is this.  It’s the holiday time of year.  People are in a gifting mood.  They are feeling generous.  They want your holiday to be special.  They are ready to give you things.

Often times they have no idea what to get you.  So pick out some cool gifts that keep on giving, and tell them what you need in order to have those gifts.

And do the same for the people on your gift list.  How special is it to give someone something that not only is in the sweet spot of what they really want, it helps them log RIch and Happy minutes for the rest of their life.

Enjoy the holidays!

John