Bragging Rights

I’m sitting here debating what post I should publish. I’m agonizing over it because I promised myself I would publish at least one post a month in the new year. One a month at the very bare minimum. Should be no problem at all because I’m turning over a new leaf, not procrastinating anymore, getting my act together. So with about an hour left in the month of January, it seems like a great time to choose a topic for this post.

I was zeroing in on my final selection: guilt. The guilt trip. How I sometimes feel that guilt rules my life, and is my strongest motivating factor. I’m driven to do so many of the things I do out of guilt. Or equally as often, I just suck it up and do the damn thing so I can experience a lack of guilt. A guilt aversion if you will. Seems like a fairly relatable topic and one that I have plenty to ruminate about.

And then I notice another little note on the side, another potential topic scribbled down there next to my list (with a question mark next to it because I wasn’t sure how I felt about this one). The gist of it is to celebrate yourself and celebrate your wins. And then it dawns on me that this post I was about to crank out and publish is also driven by guilt. Pressure I am putting on myself because of this completely arbitrary goal I set for myself. A goal I am now in grave danger of falling short from, and feeling like a bit of a failure quite honestly.

(Don’t get me wrong. I love goals. I think they’re great. I’ll get back to that another day. Don’t come at me in the meantime.)

So I am going to choose not to look at it like that, at least for right now. I am going to do something I hardly ever do, something that is so unnatural and awkward for me that I feel like it’s a homework assignment I constantly avoid. But an extremely important one none the less.

I am going to brag on myself.

Because we all need to do this much more often. We all need to celebrate ourselves and celebrate all of the wins. The huge monumental wins as well as the tiny, seemingly insignificant wins. It’s crucially important. I’ve seen the impact of this lately with my own children, but I’m willing to bet examples are apparent everywhere in life if we take the time to look.