It’s almost one month into the new year. Personally, this is right about when I switch from the optimism and promise of planning-mode into the reality of review-mode. I realized last year that I resisted my weekly reviews because that’s when my judgy mind would shoot regret-arrows. Every missed item became a perceived failure.
I had become really good at shoving regrets into my mental suitcase, zipping them up under pressure, and storing them in mind’s attic. To be opened at another time when I felt better resourced. Intellectually I knew that reviews and adjustments are what make plans successful and that planning is iterative, but I still found myself avoiding review time. The regrets I had saved were stealing energy from the future.
So before doing any planning this year, I opened that regret-filled suitcase and spent time reviewing the regrets themselves.
It sounded scarier to me than it actually was. The fabric of each regret was simply dreams and hopes. Innocent dreams and hopes, might I add. Although I really had to pay attention to parse out the ones that were actually mine. Some were in my suitcase because they seemed to be in everyone else’s. Some were mine to begin with but I had outgrown them and they no longer fit. Some I kept, in case I could fulfill them in the future. No dream was left unseen. I essentially emptied the attic.
Whatever dreams I kept, I hope to hold them very lightly. Because even if I fulfill them, they may happen in a different way altogether than I imagine.
I don’t want to make superficial plans that I hold on to like a control freak. I want to orient around deeper and consistent intentions that transcend annual plans. I want to keep clearing this extra mental weight as it builds up so I can enjoy the process of doing, learning, and reviewing. Of succeeding at some things and inevitably failing at others. When regrets start stealing energy from the future, it’s time to let them go.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie, physicist and chemist
