As we prepare to move into 2021

I am wishing you all a truly happy, healthy New Year. We likely have less than a year ahead of us to deal with this pandemic. Perhaps as little as 9-10 months. Keep the faith, friends. We can do hard things.

Last week, I started my end-of-the-year analysis. I like to look back and see what worked, and what didn’t.

Not gonna lie—my coaching business didn’t take in the big bucks this year. It would be easy to feel like a failure. To feel I was behind, or that this is pointless.

But.

I started assessing what I accomplished this year (business and personal), and I came up with a much longer list than expected. Here goes:

• I wrote and sold some copies of 12 Tips to Help You Sleep.

• I wrote and sold some copies of Lower Your Anxiety

• I had an article published in Mantra Magazine, a nationally distributed publication

• I had an article (my second) published at Tiny Buddha.com. It’s title is “What You Need to Do If You Feel Overwhelmed”

• I was interviewed on three podcasts. One episode didn’t air yet, but here is the link to Rah Rah Podcast, and here is the link to Clarity Junction

• I did a guest appearance/workshop for Rah Rah Consulting’s membership

• I created All is Calm, a program to help people simplify their holidays.

• I ran my first ever session of The Declutter Course

• I worked with spectacular clients one-on-one to provide coaching so they could gain clarity and move toward their personal and business goals

• I got some business coaching for myself from Jo Casey, Louise Howard, and Susan Hyatt.

• I had four procedures to diagnose and remove adenoma from my duodenum, including a three-day hospital stay on my birthday, during COVID—and it all turned out okay.

• I helped Morris recover from bilateral knee replacement surgery—he’s a champion.

There are lots of other things, I’m sure, but these are the bigger things that I accomplished this year. Not bad for a pandemic year.

I’m sharing my list because I am positive that you can write a similar list, too. And I think you should.

Below is the selfie I took when I finished writing out my list. There were far more things on my list than I’d expected, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I had actually accomplished. You can see me here looking a bit like the cat that ate the canary.

Here’s the thing: it would have been easy to leave some things off the list because they didn’t result in income. But I chose to honor my efforts as much as any external results.

You can—and I would argue that you should—come up with your own list of accomplishments for 2020.

Here’s what I suggest: Take 30 to 60 minutes of time for yourself. Sit down (or take a walk) and give yourself time and space to think over the course of the year. I know it feels like this year has lasted for a decade, but with some time and patience, you can go back to January and work your way forward. Flip through your calendar (whether it’s paper or on your computer or phone) if you need to remember events.

Write down anything you managed to achieve or accomplish. This could mean “keeping us all fed throughout the year”, which is seriously a major accomplishment this year. Give yourself credit for anything you would give other people if they told you they did it. Homeschooling kids, taking care of a sick loved one, beating an illness yourself, learning something new, starting a new hobby, finishing a task . . .

Grab a piece of paper and make a list of things you did this year that are accomplishments or achievements, whether they were recognized by other people or whether they flew under the radar. You can snag the prompt I created for you with prompts to help you think through some of the “categories” of life.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, things don’t work out as well as expected or lead to a “good result”—for instance, though I created the All is Calm program, it didn’t run this year. Please judge yourself by your efforts in those cases, rather than by whether the end result was an outward “success.”

And frankly, all of us accomplished a lot this year just by making it through to the end. So don’t forget to grant yourself grace and acknowledge yourself for anything and everything you did to get through this pandemic (so far). We aren’t out of these woods yet, but we can almost see the clearing, so hang in there.

If you do this exercise, I’d love to celebrate your achievements with you. Feel free to let me know what is on your list by leaving me a comment!