Celebrate the Gains

This photo is of a crazy staircase in New York called The Vessel. I didn’t have a photo of me climbing a mountain, so this will do. When you are half way up, are you looking at all you’ve already accomplished or are you focused on all that still left to conquer?

While we are climbing out of the pandemic and starting to return to many of the things we might term “normal,” the effects of it are still very much with us. I have struggled with motivation, amongst other things, over the past 16 months. I recently met with my friend and accountability partner, Candice, to conduct a mid-year review and those 2.5 hours completely flipped my thinking. It was like an a-ha moment on steroids.

I had done a year in review with her at the end of 2020, but hadn’t really considered the importance of doing a mid-year reflection. I often look at my annual goals and sort out what progress I need to make yet, but I don’t generally list my accomplishments thus far as part of that process (a process which will be amended immediately).

Here's how it went.

Candice asked me: “What are your accomplishments so far in 2021? Both business and personal?”

I thought for a moment and started with:

• I became Extended DISC certified

• I created an Introduction to DISC PowerPoint Presentation

• I maintained my biweekly blog presence

She smiled and said, “what else” and a few more things came out:

• I survived the end of the school year

• I survived my 12 day isolation in April

• I booked COVID immunizations for much of my family

And she calmly said, “keep going” and a flood of other accomplished spewed out of my mouth. I wrote them down in my notebook and in the end, my list totaled 23 accomplishments. By then, I was even on a roll and if pushed, could have probably come up with even more. I took a moment, however, to reflect on these 23 triumphs during a time when I didn’t feel my best and I was fighting all the mental and emotional challenges of a pandemic.

Mindset is a core element of leadership (do you want to follow Winnie the Pooh or Eeyore). Gain versus Gap is an important aspect of mindset, but I had been stuck in Gap (which is interesting as I am generally great at looking at the Gains). Imagine you are hiking up a mountain and you stop part way up. You look forward at the steep climb ahead of you and every step you need to still take to reach the summit (Gap). Then you look back and take in the journey thus far and all that you accomplished (Gain). Which one is predominant for you? Extrapolate that to when you reflect on your goals? Do you focus solely on what you still need to do, or do you take time to celebrate all that you’ve accomplished along that journey?

Reflecting on my accomplishments completely reframed my thoughts and changed my outlook and motivation. I have accomplished tons and I have plenty to be proud of. I have been in a rut; I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated. Those emotions impact my mindset (or maybe my mindset created those emotions), but it was a tough cycle, and while I was aware of the thoughts bouncing around in my brain, I felt powerless to harness and move past them, which became a negative cycle. Yesterday, though, I broke that cycle and it felt great!