Disappointed by your lack of accomplishment?
Ever look back at the year and feel like you accomplished ‘hardly anything’? Or feel like your attempts were akin to a torn fishing net, never catching a thing? Maybe the projects you led never came to fruition. Or the book you’re trying to write is monstrous and messy. Despite all your good intentions, you reckon you’ve been devoured and by holiday season you’ve got little to give.
Once this time of year comes round…I feel overstretched and exhausted. I don’t think there’s a single entry in my journal fist pumping a recent win. While there’s a part of me that’s like, ‘right the Christmas tree- still have to put that up’ and what DO we bake at this time of year? There’s another part of me that yearns to make sense of what’s transpired.
I crave a pause between work overload and ginger molasses gluttony to figure out whether I accomplished what I set out to do. Many of my clients ask themselves similar questions. Did I hit tenure? Land the next book deal? Get the big job? Make time for regular mini-adventures? Go for that weekly pint with friends at Winterlong?
But what happens when you and I didn’t? What happens when we were undone by loss, grief, new babies, community suicides or six unrelenting weeks of snotty noses that forced you to do that dreaded parent/work/from home thing?
Upon considering what mattered, at first glance maybe you come up empty. Then quickly chastise yourself for either a sucky memory or failed attempts for reaching what you intended 12 months ago. Remember? The ones around the thank-god-it’s-2022-New Years when you celebrated with one neighbor with separate chip bowls. Makes looking back at the year much less appealing doesn’t it?
Messages on a linear, progressive life
Our culture is oversaturated with messages about a linear, progressive life. That success is getting up at dawn, hording the best nets and casting them out early to get a ‘leg up’. All to fill a prescribed set of quantifiable accomplishment and enjoy the fleeting hearts after sharing them on social.
No wonder these rituals of to-do-lists, New Year’s resolutions, and performance reviews reinforce the idea that our external accomplishments are paramount.
But see- here’s the trap. It’s an illusory one- the idea that we’re separate enough from one another, our projects, our books, kids, and invading viruses- that we can wield enough control and power over externals to achieve what we want, when we want.
Where did you improv?
But we’re not separate from nor in control of anything I’d argue. And when we start from that premise, a Looking Back ritual gets a lot more interesting.
I’d rather ask when were you caught off guard? Had to pivot? Thrown off balance? How did you respond when all the bets were off? Instead of throwing the nets in the ocean did you cast yourself into the deep? If so, what did you uncover? Learn to trust? This is the territory of a different kind. It’s watery and fluid.
One that invites us not into a game of accomplishment but a dynamic dance between our good intentions and wild improv.
So as the year comes to a close, let’s focus less on our nostalgic milestones of yesteryear but discover what devoured us so completely that we found ourselves rising with resilience, creativity, and animate aliveness.
Because THIS my friends is the kind of fuel we collectively need for this coming year.
