Trying To Make an Honest Assessment of 2024

Why you should take an even-handed approach

It’s that time of year when you take a look back and imagine yourself looking forward. It is prudent to think about the joys, successes, and challenges you experienced over the past 12 months - but it’s not easy.

First of all, you’ve probably forgotten a lot of the good things that happened and you remember in excruciating detail anything that was a challenge or abject failure. That’s because our brains are wired with a negativity bias, which from an evolutionary point of view, is advantageous. It kept us (and continues to keep us) alive. Hooray!

But what this negativity bias also can do is make you feel pretty crappy about your past year, especially if you didn't achieve all of your goals.

(Of course you didn’t achieve all of your goals. It’s almost impossible to do that, unless you set them really low, and then it’s not much of an achievement now, is it?)

My co-coach, Angie Rome Gonzalez, offers something separate from the work she does with my company this time of year. It’s her process she calls ROAD MAP. In a single coaching session she helps you objectively think through your past year, consider what you want to create for yourself in the New Year, and commit to taking a few action steps to get yourself started.

ROAD MAP an elegant process and incredibly powerful. I am looking forward to my upcoming session. You can book your session and get 25% off before Christmas with this link. (Not an affiliate link.)

Angie sends out a worksheet in advance with questions you need to think through and share with her before your session. She knew I would be really annoyed with how this year played out and reminded me to include the good stuff and celebrate that, in addition to identifying what went sideways.

I’ll add that it’s important to look at your year, including your successes and failures, with objectivity and kindness.

I experienced what I am calling a major burnout for the first six months of this year. This wasn’t unexpected since I have been working in and on this business for 14 years.

I did as little as I possibly could for the first half of the year. My only goal was to be able to pay my bills and get through whatever time it was going to take to start feeling better. The goals I had set for 2024 had metrics and sounded fun. They were SMART goals, if you’re familiar with that, but the coach I was working with pointed out that those activities likely wouldn’t track back to revenue and maybe they weren’t the right goals. I thought they might have a point.

My enthusiasm for the year fizzled out. I never got back into the groove. I have limped through the entire year, to be honest.

Usually, I snap to attention and dive into work in the beginning of August. That didn’t happen this year. I tried to engage, but I was in “fake it ‘til you make it” mode.

Somehow, I managed to work with clients and get them great results in the middle of burnout and disengagement. There are some benefits to having worked in this business for as long as I have.

And, to be honest, there were some wins. One of them was around my art and doing the shows I committed to doing. We can check that box.

The other was starting this Substack on April 1, 2024. It has been my absolute joy to talk to you every week and share some sanctuary during these crazy times.

I will continue to post here in 2025 and I am really looking forward to that.

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash