I turned 52 this week!
You’ve probably read it before on the Blog, here that it’s not the age that matters (It’s the mileage, right?). Typically, what’ll happen is that I’ll get really introspective around this time along with the time around the end of the year.
The way it shakes out, I’ve got a six-month window between reflection periods – though I am beginning to suspect that I might need to do it more often, we’ll see.
So if I do this twice a year, every year, what made this year noteworthy?
First: It required a shift in thinking. When I sat down the day before my birthday and asked myself what I wanted to see in the next six months, I slipped into this huge negative-fest.
I’d started a list (because I love lists) and after about 10 minutes of brainstorming, I went back and read it.
Everything began with “Don’t” or “Stop” or something like that. The entire list was this massive look back, focusing on how I’d screwed up on this, or failed to do that as well as I’d wanted, let myself slide (in a bad way) on this other thing.
To be sure, there were things to recognize and celebrate in those past six months, but they were buried under all that negativity.
I recognized that needed to look at things differently. I resisted the urge to simply crumple up that list and start again, because, despite the negativity, I wasn’t wrong. There are things that I wanted to improve upon, but I wasn’t going to make much progress starting off from a place of negativity.
Instead, I re-wrote the list, focusing on the positive – what I wanted to achieve, or see more of in the next six months.
In the end, it turned out to be a shorter list overall, because I could gather “You F-ed up X, Y, and Z” into “You want to develop A.”
Now the list was shorter but, overall, I took up more space on the page in outlining what I thought I needed to do to get there.
This turned out to be a much better exercise and I finished (well, as much as it is possible to really be “Finished” with something like that) up feeling much better about the coming months.
Even as I type this, there’s a part of me that finds this familiar, like I’ve talked about this before.
Maybe I have, but it’s clearly something I’ve forgotten, and I’m glad for the reminder.
So here’s to the next six months, and seeing what we can reach.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
###
Be sure to check out the Freebies Page for story Excerpts.
If you’ve read, and enjoyed any of my books, please consider leaving a review: