What have you done lately?
I mean, what have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you take a few minutes and capture that.
It has always intrigued me how much a less-than-conscious part of me can still have energy wrapped up around activities and projects, until I acknowledge that they’re done, to myself. Kathryn and I have made an annual exercise, at year-end, of making the list of major completions and accomplishments. It’s really quite a healthy, cleansing completion in itself. It includes everything that we can think of—from projects like launching a new course, to new places visited, to family changes handled, to old business completed, to new skills and tricks learned.
I’ve noticed that there is likely some resistance to doing that process as well. I had a client say in all sincerity that he was afraid to declare some of his projects “done.” (I mean, what if they weren’t perfect yet?!)
I suggest you give yourself a treat and review the year that just passed and look forward to the year ahead.
Celebrate any progress. Don’t wait to get perfect.
—Ann McGee Cooper
This essay appeared in David Allen’s Productive Living Newsletter. Subscribe for free here.