Acknowledging Your Greatness (Instead of “Fixing” Yourself)

Alex Terranova - aka the DreamMason and podcaster extraordinaire - recently invited me onto his DreamMason podcast to interview him for a year-end wrap-up. I’m so excited to have worked with him on this fun project, and will update my social media feeds when the episode airs. 

So today, let’s talk more about Alex. In our conversation, we talked around what he wants to acknowledge himself for, with regards to all that he created this year.

But something really interesting happened. I noticed as Alex was acknowledging himself, he was acknowledging all of the things that he worked on or improved or transformed - or, frankly, fixed about himself - to make his successes for the year possible. 

Isn’t that interesting to notice? I think a lot of us fall into the trap where we need to justify that we're worthy of what we've created, or we need to hone in on what we've fixed about ourselves or the gaps that we've closed. 

To challenge that assumption, let’s talk about other ways to acknowledge ourselves. I believe there are two distinctions that really matter. 

Acknowledge What’s Already Working

When you are coming from this place of acknowledging the gaps that you have, you start to get into this mindset of never being good enough. You say things like, “I fixed my workout routine” or “I brushed my teeth more because I wasn't doing it enough” or “I'm eating healthier so I’m not as fat.” 

These statements come from a place of criticizing where you are at. And that's not a bad thing. I think it's valuable for us to be aware of what our gaps are and what we need to work on. 

But what I'm saying is that when you only place the emphasis on what it is you need to work on, you're constantly pushing the goalpost post further and further along for yourself. This might actually result in creating unattainable standards - but more importantly, it sets you in the context of always needing to fix yourself.

On the flip side, what happened to acknowledging where you already are? 

I just don’t think we do this enough, as people, especially in personal transformation and personal development work. In those practices, we’re always considering, “What needs to be transformed? What needs to be changed about me?” instead of all the intrinsically great things that we have to build off of, like, “I'm already really smart. When it comes to my professional career, how can I bring that smartness to finding the love of my life?”

Here’s what that looks like in practice. 

Instead of saying, “I ate better this year. I fixed that about myself” we can say “The thing I want to acknowledge is that I'm really good at setting visions and fulfilling them. I realized there was something that I wanted to change in my eating habits and I did what it took to make it happen.”

Do you see the difference? 

It’s not about focusing on what was wrong or what you perceived as wrong, which in this case was your eating habits, but it's focusing on who you intrinsically already were to make those changes possible. 

You're a goal-setter, you're a planner. You're reliable to be resilient in that way. 

Acknowledge yourself for who you were this year by looking at what was already amazing. Perhaps you just put it on loudspeaker or you finessed it or you grew even more.

I think it's kind of a nuanced subject, but part of why I feel it matters so much is that this is a lesson that you can bring into leadership.

Practice This As a Leader

When you work on teams, whether it's your own team or a team inside of another company that you work for, so often we're looking at what's not working, what needs to be fixed, or where the gaps are that need to be closed. 

But now more than ever, especially in the United States with this “great resignation” and people leaving companies because they don't feel satisfied or feel seen or heard, it is more important than ever to be able to celebrate people for who they are and the gifts that they bring and how they are contributing to closing the gaps that you're working on. 

My challenge for you is to first, notice this for yourself, and then apply these same ideas to the team that you lead.