How’s the Water: Taking Stock Before the New Year

In the next few weeks, we’ll be bombarded with all sorts of blog posts and articles, podcasts and self-help books about goals and accomplishments.

I have nothing against goals and accomplishments, but these messages often focus on lack: not being enough, doing enough, having enough.

Before all that happens, I want to remind you to stop, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that you already know things, have accomplished something, and have what you need.

If you’ve been on this planet long enough to own a device that brings you here, onto the internet, and (somehow) to my blog, then you have skills. You can read words and process them. That, in itself, is no small thing.  

I think we don’t always recognize what we do know. Like the old joke, asking the fish how the water is, and the fish replies: What water?

We take for granted the things we do know and can do. Like the fish, it’s the water we swim in, and we don’t recognize that someone else may find what we do both fascinating and impressive.

So before you’re bombarded with all that you haven’t done or have yet accomplished, take stock. You know lots of things, and you can do lots of things, from the small to the large. Can you whistle? Know how to deal with a surly customer? Cook the perfect egg?

Skills. Serious skills. I mean, I’ve never been able to whistle, and all attempts to teach me have failed.

Take a moment to give yourself credit for everything you already do. Take a moment to celebrate your accomplishments—big and small—and recognize your value before the onslaught of the new year.

Take a moment to breathe.