Generally in life we’re encouraged to look forwards.
Plan for the future.
Set goals.
Visualise how you want to be.
All of this helps to give us direction and stay focused (and I’m all for that).
BUT when we’re constantly looking to the future, we can lose sight of everything we’ve achieved so far.
Our eyes are always on the road ahead, thinking about the next goal, and we forget to appreciate what we have already created around us.
I’m holding my hands up here as a recovering eyes-forward, goal-setting junkie!
Since childhood, I’ve always been striving to achieve, constantly thinking about the next qualification, the next job, the next personal goal to work towards.
Whenever I achieved something, I didn’t give myself any time to acknowledge and appreciate it. I immediately started to think about what was next.
When I worked in finance, I was the first person in my company to pass a high-level investment exam. It was blooming hard work and took months of study. But as soon as I found out I had passed, I started to plan what qualification to work towards next. Crazy!
And do you know what? It’s exhausting when your eyes are constantly fixed on the road ahead.
You never feel satisfied with where you are.
It always feels like there is something missing.
This comes up time and time again with my clients. Very often, unless I specifically ask them to acknowledge (and celebrate) what they’ve achieved so far, they’ll instead focus on what’s still to do, beating themselves up about not being ‘there’ yet.
Why is this important?
Well, when you feel exhausted, dissatisfied and under pressure to keep moving, it’s not a great place to create wealth (of any kind) from.
Also, when we’re not appreciating all of the glorious-ness that we’ve achieved so far, we’re sending a pretty ungrateful message to the Universe. ‘Sorry, but that’s quite enough. I need more!’
So, as we move towards the end of the year, I want to encourage you to move into a place of appreciation.
Give yourself some time to write down everything you have achieved this year so far.
Really go to town and include business and personal achievements, big and small.
Allow yourself to feel good about everything you have created this year.
And celebrate it!
Take a breath, look back and make some space for appreciation.
I promise this will lift you up.
Nicola x
