Year’s End Reflections

December is a time to both celebrate and reflect.  All too often, we cannot hear praise and we forget to celebrate our accomplishments, focusing instead on perceived deficiencies and/or gaps in our achievement.  These are two meta-patterns in systemic work.  Globally, most of us are raised to focus on what is wrong with us and not to hear what is right.  Incredibly, the entire world could have a completely different future if we just opened our hearts to the praise and took a little time to acknowledge our accomplishments.  

Important questions to ask yourself:  Do you know how to receive praise, and can you use it wisely to build a superpower?  Can you take ownership of your accomplishments and be proud of yourself?  The wise man uses both to create resilience and direction. 

Notice who in your family could or couldn’t receive praise and what that cost them in their lives and careers.  Who in your family could or couldn’t acknowledge their accomplishments and what did that cost them?

Systemically, our thoughts words and feelings, and those of our predecessors, create our reality.  For prior generations, accepting praise and acknowledging accomplishments may have been dangerous or caused exclusions.  Now, being able to receive praise for good work and being able to verbalize our capabilities are both regarded as skill sets – times have changed, and it is helpful when patterns in the system also evolve. 

Simply ask yourself, “Am I repeating limiting patterns from the past or am I creating new directions and possibilities?”  Reflecting on the year that has been, are you going to mine for gold or coal?  The choice is yours.