Are you like me and you can get a little sad saying goodbye to one year and at the same time excited for what the next year may offer?
I have to admit, I tend to get a little sentimental around this time of year and this year I had a few things that have changed my perspective this year.
I often find myself sad and filled with some pieces of regret as the year comes to a close. Did it live up to my expectations? Did I accomplish all that I had hoped to accomplish? Did I reach my new year's resolutions or was this yet another year of failing to uphold my "new year, new me" mentality. As I have been preparing for what I know historically are somber days (between Christmas and Jan 1st), I started to consider taking a different perspective. I decided to measure 2022 a little differently and utilize the concept from a book The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
In the book, the authors discuss how we often will have ideals of how life should be, what it is going to be like and what goals I am going to reach. These ideals are often unattainable and unrealistic. In the situation that we do happen to reach our ideals, we often move the ideal further along to make it unreachable. It is like the rabbit who is working hard to get to the carrot, only to have the carrot moved further down the path right before it can grab a bite. This process then robs us from feeling the pleasure and joy of reaching our goals. And instead of feeling pleasure our brain sends a stress signal instead. Are you starting to see how this may play into my end of year blues?
In 2022, I came across the book, The Gap & The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy and it has helped me change my perspective as we bring 2022 to a close. Sullivan and Dr. Hardy write about the need to "always measure backwards."
Instead of did I meet my goals and ideals for 2022, I need to stop and reflect back on how much progress I made in the past year. Instead of how I did not achieve my goal, I will look at what progress--no matter how big or small was made. Some of this will take work, but I want to challenge you as we close out 2022...take a look at this past year. Can you identify the progress and growth or do you notice you are still comparing to your ideals? We plan to dive deeper into this topic over the next few weeks and during our Building Healthy Habits course January 10th. If you are interested in digging deeper, check out our "Get Involved" page to register for our upcoming course January 10th!