The beginning of the year seems to mark a renewed sense of motivation, a hopeful sense of endless possibilities. I am in the same boat as most people, as we all set out to achieve our new goals and vow to fulfill them once and for all, only to find ourselves in the same place at the end of the year. Now, for an overachiever like me I find that nothing I do is enough. This is something I have always suffered from. I say suffer because I am suffering with an emptiness that can’t be replenished. Last year I accomplished more than I ever have, plus some. By the end of December I was still feeling like I hadn’t reached the level I had hoped for and this left me feeling inadequate to say the least.
For me, this feeling has helped me to keep going and striving for more but I have also recently recognized that the deep feelings of accomplishment have been fleeting. It stems from several things, one being that my father has never been proud of anything I have done, which is painful but something I have no control over. Another reason is the emergence of social media posts about strangers living remarkable lives, doing incredible things, and going to beautiful destinations. It’s easy to dismiss the impact of these factors by just telling myself that it doesn’t matter, that I don’t really care, but in fact, I do care- a lot.
So what is the solution? Years of therapy? Turning off all social media and pretend like I don’t have a father? No to all of these. I recently made time to read my past journal entries from last year and I was filled with joy knowing how far I have come and the vast improvement that was apparent after realizing that all my efforts have been compounding into effective habits that have propelled me forward to live a life that my two or five years ago self could have only dreamed of. I told myself that at the end of the year I would list off all of my accomplishments just so I could give myself an honest pat on the back and know that I am doing what I said I wanted to do. Writing in my journal has helped me get through some dark times in my life, but I rarely went back to read these entries. I have journaled for most of my life and I am just now realizing that they are full of golden nuggets of information that can only serve to help me.
With anything that we want to get better at, I realize I need to practice feeling enough as I am and that my worth is not wrapped up in how many things I can do in a day, week, month, or year. We are all enough just by being our amazing human selves, anything more is the cherry on top.
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