You’ve accomplished more than you think
Treading water works for a while. But if you could use a sense of progress right now, here’s what to do.
Remember that meme from those early pandemic days about how Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” during a plague lockdown — as if all that was standing between us and creative genius was a little hustle?
And then there were the counter-memes: Sure, Shakespeare wrote “King Lear.” But he wasn’t supervising Zoom kindergarten at the same time.
Once all the jokes had been made, a new message started to settle in: You don’t have to come out the other side of this with a masterpiece or a new skill or even an intact sourdough starter. You just need to get through it. Take it day by day. Don’t pressure yourself to perform. Breathe. Be.
That sentiment helped lots of us, for a while.
But here’s another truth: years of just keeping your head above water starts to wear on you.
I can see it with my clients. Many of them tell me they’re struggling to write self-assessments for their performance reviews right now. Key accomplishments? Big wins? Future goals? The whole thing feels like it’s from another planet. “I don’t think I did anything this year,” one told me.
Like lots of you, this person had big plans before the pandemic — career moves to make, events they were excited about, professional growth goals they cared about. And when those things fell apart, nothing took their place — they were just getting by, day by day.
But humans have a core need for a sense of progress. When that need goes unmet for a prolonged period — like, say, literal years — it’s pretty deflating.
So if you’re craving a sense of progress right now — the feeling that you’re going somewhere, not just treading water — know that you’re not alone. It’s normal. But trying to achieve the goals you had two or three years ago probably won’t fix it. The world has changed. You’ve changed.
So instead, I’d like to challenge you to set aside your previous ideas about success, and try to identify some different types of accomplishments for yourself — ones that might not have been on any New Year’s goals lists, but that are meaningful nonetheless.
5 questions to help you find a sense of progress right now
- What’s something you did in the past year that past-you would never have imagined?
- Think of a time when things felt truly impossible over the past year. What did you do to keep going anyway?
- What’s something you learned about yourself in the past year? How might that new knowledge help you in the future?
- What old beliefs or habits that weren’t serving you did you let go of over the past year? What did it take for you to let them go?
- What can you celebrate about how you showed up over the past year? Where did you face adversity with your values intact?
Personally, I had a rough year with some big losses made more painful by pandemic stress. My confidence — in my work, in my ideas, in my ability to live my values — took a hit. At times, I wondered if I was a big fake, a bad friend, a hypocrite, and a has-been.
But when I ask myself those questions, I can also see that this time has given me new strengths and perspectives. I reckoned with old baggage around control and boundaries, and forged new friendships and work relationships that fill me with gratitude and connection. I faced hard conversations with integrity and compassion, apologized without expecting anything from it, and let go of a whole bunch of shame. None of this was what I expected. But all of it means something to me. All of it made the programs I launched and the work I did with clients stronger. And all of it will carry me forward.
So what’s on your accomplishments list this year? I’d love to hear about it.
This post originally appeared in the December 9, 2021, edition of our newsletter, Nice Work. Subscribe here.
