Learning to Trust Myself to Be the Change I Need
A decade’s worth of hard lessons coalesced in 2023, helping me chart a course for 2024
This year’s end-of-year reflection looks different than in years past
Before, I’d reflect on the outgoing year as a sort of divination for where I seemed to be heading in the forthcoming year. I’d start with a template of 50 or so questions to answer about what I’d done. Then I’d use another template of 30 or so questions to answer about what I wanted to do next.
I did this for several years. Before that, I’d resisted making New Year’s resolutions for most of my adult life. I’d learned early on that our best-laid plans rarely go the way we think, want, or even hope.
Instead, I went with the flow a lot, staying open to opportunities — jobs, people, projects — and jumping when doing so seemed to make sense.
But these previous efforts were laden with the desire to prove myself: prove I could, that I was one thing or not another, that my voice and words were valid and important, that I mattered. A lot of the opportunities I jumped into only reflected this need for external validation.
Shaking off that need for validation brought me…
