The tradition of gift-giving has deep roots in humanity’s history, giving social scientists plenty of data to study; a quick Google search brings up dozens of articles discussing the research on gift-giving.
You don’t have to be a researcher, though, to know that not all gifts are created equal. Factors in gift-giving vary more than you might expect and include everything from how close you feel to the recipient, how you expect them to act, whether they’ve told you what they want, and so on.
So how can you know what people really want? Especially when you’re dealing with that one person on your Christmas list who . . .
- Seems to have it all.
- Isn’t into “stuff.”
- Or, nothing seems quite right to show them your deep appreciation for them.
What can you give that hard-to-shop-for person?
Forget Stuff – Think “Experiences”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the best kinds of gifts aren’t “stuff,” but experiences. There’s research to back this up.
How exactly are experiential gifts better?
Quite simply, they’re what people want. One of the recent studies done on gift-giving finds that gift recipients tend to want experiential gifts more often than they actually receive them.
Experiences bring more happiness. That’s right. Again, taking in the research, people experience greater happiness from experiential gifts than material ones.
They make recipients feel closer to you. Let’s be honest. Even if your goal is to genuinely get someone something they’re going to love, there’s at least a small part of you that’s doing it for selfish reasons – you want them to love that you got it for them. You want them to gush over how much it shows you know them. You want the gift to make them feel closer to you. Well, that’s precisely what experiential gifts do!
With that, let’s switch gears and talk about an experiential gift that may not have occurred to you. Something many people want… but they struggle to take the plunge and do it for themselves.
Diving into Something They’ve Thought about for Years
At least one survey shows that 81% of Americans have considered writing a book. Other surveys put the number much lower—around fifty percent.
Still, that’s one of every two people you know.
Yet statistics on people who start a book, much less finish one, are much, much lower:
- Only 3% of those who want to publish a book will ever start writing.
- Only around 20% of those who start will finish their manuscript.
Do the math: if 1000 people in a room want to write a book, only 30 of them will start writing at some point. How many will finish? Just six.
Writing a whole book and doing “all the things” to get published seem overwhelming to many people.
If that many people want something, why do so few even try for it? As a ghostwriter and writing coach, I can give you a real-life answer.
I meet lots of people who want to write a book. Yet, I’ve noticed over the years that when I explain the publishing process to them or give them feedback on their writing, they withdraw into their shell. No matter how much they might want to, writing a whole book and doing “all the things” to get it out there seem overwhelming.
Encouraging people to reach for their dreams is a passion for me, so this reaction bothered me. Still, I can’t be less than honest. How, then, could I make the reality a little less scary?
I came up with a low-bar, easy-to-access answer – a six-week course to teach people:
- The basics about the writing and publishing process,
- How to improve their writing, and
- Ways to keep their writing going.
You can read more about what the course covers here, but for the special person in your life who has always talked about writing a book, this could be the perfect solution to your gift-giving conundrum.
If this sounds like a great gift for someone you love, reach out today to ask about a gift certificate for this course!
Six-week course seem like too much? Prefer 1-on-1 interaction and flexible meeting times? I have blocks of time for personalized sessions, too!
Send me an email if you’d like to learn more.